MEMORIAL 


TO    THE 


CONGRESS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 


OF    THE 


EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE 


OF    THE 


(tonoention  IjclD  at  Chicago, 


JULY  5,  1847. 


Willi  an  Abstract  of  Hie  Proceedings  of  the  Convention,  on  the  Improvement  of 

Rivers  and  Harbors. 


Presented  to  Congress,  June,  1§4§. 


ALBANY: 

C.  VAN  BENTHUYSEN,  PRINTER, 


1848. 


Pffft. 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 

Class  Book  Volume 

J  a  09-2«M 


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MEMORIAL 


TO    THE 


CONGRESS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 


OF    THE 


EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE 


OF    THE 


€ontJcntion  l)el&  at  Chicago, 


JULY  5,  1847. 


With  an  Abstract  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Convention,  on  the  Improvement  of 

Rivers  and  Harbors. 


Presented  to  Congress,  June,  l§i§. 


ALBANY: 

C.  VAN  BENTHUYSEN.  PRINTER. 


1848. 


3  27 


tg  «% 


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To  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United 
States  of  America,  in  Congress  assembled : 

The  memorial  of  the  subscribers,  members  of  a  committee  appoint- 
ed at  a  meeting  of  delegates  from  different  parts  of  the  Union, 
assembled  at  Chicago  in  the  State  of  Illinois  on  the  fifth  day  of 
July  last,  in  the  most  numerous  delegated  convention  ever  held  in 
this  country, 
Respectfully  Shows  : 

That  your  memorialists  were  instructed  by  the  said  Convention  to 
transmit  its  proceedings  to  the  President  of  the  United  States,  and 
to  both  Houses  of  Congress,  and  to  communicate  such  information 
as  the  said  committee  might  be  able  to  collect,  to  guide  intelligent 
and  just  legislation. 

In  obedience  to  these  instructions,  your  memorialists  now  trans- 
mit herewith  the  "Declaration  of  Sentiments  "  adopted  by  that 
Convention  with  entire  unanimity,  excepting  the  last  clause  of  the 
fifth  proposition,  and  expressing,  as  your  memorialists  believe,  the 
universal  opinions  of  the  vast  constituencies  represented  in  that 
meeting.  These  circumstances,  together  with  the  calmness  and  de- 
liberation which  marked  the  discussions  and  proceedings  of  the 
Convention,  and  the  enthusiastic  approbation  which  the  principles  it 
avowed,  have  received  from  all  quarters  of  the  country,  must  entitle 
them  to  the  respectful  consideration  of  the  Representatives  of  the 
People  and  of  the  States  in  Congress  assembled. 

In  discharge  of  the  duty  assigned  them,  your  memorialists  have 
collected  various  and  extensive  statistics  of  the  greatest  interest  in 
relation  to  the  commerce  of  the  country,  and  particularly  of  the  in- 
land lakes  and  rivers. 

So  far  as  the  returns  received  by  us  extend,  they  not  only  corrobo- 
rate the  results  contained  in  a  report  made  to  the  Senate  at  its  pre- 
sent session,  by  the  very  able  and  enlightened  Chief  of  the  topogra- 
phical corps  of  Engineers,  (number  four  of  Executive  Documents,) 
but  exhibit  a  prodigious  increase  during  the  year  1847  of  the  imports 


r 


2* 


and  exports  of  different  ports.  To  avoid  encumbering  this  communi- 
cation with  details,  we  annex  an  abstract  of  the  reports  received.  The 
facts  are  taken  from  the  books  of  the  custom  houses,  where  they  fur- 
nished the  materials,  and  in  other  cases  from  reliable  sources  of  infor- 
mation, the  respective  authorities  being  given  in  the  detailed  reports, 
which  are  also  herewith  communicated.  They  exhibit  the  actual 
amount  of  exports  from  ports  and  places  on  Lake  Erie  and  the  lakes 
West  of  it,  and  connected  with  it,  during  the  last  year,  of  more  than 
sixty-four  millions  of  dollars.  This,  which  is  believed  to  be  under 
rather  than  above  the  true  result,  is  sufficient  to  satisfy  you  that  it  is 
an  interest  even  now  worthy  of  attention.  But  when  it  is  recollect- 
ed that  it  is  but  the  childhood,  the  infancy  of  a  trade,  which  is  but 
of  yesterday's  growth,  and  that  a  boundless  extent  of  the  best  land 
on  the  continent  is  yet  to  be  opened  to  cultivation,  to  swell  the 
mighty  torrent  of  trade  which  is  to  empty  itself  into  the  Atlantic, — 
it  will  be  difficult  to  fix  limits  to  the  vastness  of  the  commerce 
which  will  call  upon  you  for  protection  and  aid. 

The  accounts  of  the  losses  of  lives  and  of  property  caused  by 
shipwrecks  and  other  disasters,  and  which  in  all  human  probability 
would  have  been  avoided  had  there  been  adequate  harbors  on  the 
lakes,  we  lament  to  say,  are  very  deficient.  There  is  an  intrinsic 
difficulty  in  obtaining  authentic  accounts  of  such  events,  which  rest 
in  the  memory  of  so  many  individuals.  In  two  reports  which  have 
been  furnished  us,  we  find  the  names  of  ninety  vessels  which  have 
been  lost  since  1833  on  the  great  lakes,  besides  four  on  Lake  Supe- 
rior, the  value  of  which  and  that  of  their  cargoes,  where  known, 
exceeds  680,000  dollars  ;  and  we  find  also  by  one  of  those  reports, 
that  367  lives  are  known  to  have  been  lost.  A  return  from  Oswego 
shows  a  loss  of  ten  vessels  within  the  present  year  on  Lake  Ontario, 
causing  damage  to  the  amount  $26,250,  besides  injuries  to  cargoes 
to  the  amount  of  $9,375.  To  the  above  should  be  added  the  vessels 
that  have  gone  ashore  almost  every  week  at  different  places  on  the 
lake  coast.  It  is  impossible  to  estimate  the  amount  of  damage  the 
vessels  themselves  have  received,  the  expense  of  getting  them  afloat 
and  repairing  them,  the  injury  to  cargoes,  and  the  loss  of  time  and 
wages. 

Some  faint  idea  of  the  extent  of  suffering,  arising  from  the  causes 
mentioned  may  be  formed  from  a  chronological  account  of  disasters 
on  the  lakes  during  the  year  1846,  published  in  a  newspaper  of 
great  credit,  and  which  has  not  been  questioned.     We  beg  leave  to 


annex  it  to  this  memorial,  as  furnishing  a  graphic  account  of  the 
storms  on  the  lower  lakes,  and  the  frequency  of  their  occurrence. 

We  know  not  that  any  language  of  ours  could  add  to  the  impres- 
sion which  a  simple  statement  of  the  facts  ought  to  make  upon  every 
human  heart.  It  is  a  tale  of  woe  and  distress  that  must  excite  the 
strongest  sympathy,  and  prompt  to  the  most  energetic  efforts  to  re- 
move the  causes  of  such  unnecessary  suffering.  We  say  unneces- 
sary, because  official  reports  from  competent  and  disinterested  offi- 
cers of  the  United  States,  have,  for  years,  been  laid  before  Con- 
gress demonstrating  the  facility  and  moderate  expense  with  which 
the  most  important  harbors  on  the  lakes  can  be  rendered  accessible, 
and  afford  that  shelter  which  is  now  denied  to  the  persons  and  pro- 
perty engaged  in  that  navigation.  These  reports  also  show  the  ob- 
structions in  the  navigation  of  the  lakes  and  rivers  emptying  into 
them,  and  with  what  great  ease  and  little  expense  they  can  be  re- 
moved. 

The  same  remarks  are  applicable  to  the  navigation  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  of  the  great  rivers  leading  to  it.  The  authentic  report  of 
the  committee  appointed  at  St.  Louis,  which  is  communicated  here- 
with, exhibits  the  vast  amount  of  tonnage  engaged  in  the  trade  on 
those  rivers,  the  almost  incredible  value  of  the  cargoes  transported, 
and  the  great  number  of  persons  employed  in  it.  The  difficulties 
and  obstructions  in  that  commerce  are  too  well  known  to  need  des- 
cription here,  and  the  facility  with  which  they  can  be  removed  has 
been  demonstrated  so  clearly  by  the  success  which  has  attended  the 
few  efforts  heretofore  made  for  the  purpose,  that  no  doubt  can  remain 
with  the  most  obtuse. 

An  abstract  of  the  reports  received  from  the  ports  on  the  Atlantic 
coast,  and  the  original  returns  which  it  condenses,  are  also  annexed, 
containing  much  valuable  local  information,  particularly  in  reference 
to  obstructions  in  rivers  and  harbors  on  the  seaboard. 

In  the  further  discharge  of  their  duties,  your  memorialists  would 
most  respectfully  submit  their  views  in  elucidation  and  defence  of 
the  propositions  embodied  in  the  "Declaration  of  sentiments"  here- 
with transmitted.  That  document  was  necessarily  brief  and  con- 
densed ;  its  very  nature  forbidding  any  amplification  of  the  funda- 
mental truths  it  was  designed  to  proclaim. 

The  subject  requires  the  consideration, 

First,  Of  the  constitutional  power  of  Congress  to  make  appro- 
priations for  the  improvements  contemplated  by  the  Convention 
within  the  limitations  declared  by  it ;  and 


Second,  The  duty  and  expediency  of  exercising  that  power. 

And  while  considering  the  latter  it  will  be  proper  to  discuss  the 
question  whether  there  are  other  means  of  effecting  the  proposed 
improvements,  which  are  just  in  themselves,  and  adequate  to  the 
purpose,  and  which  can  be  adopted  without  producing  interminable 
difficulties  between  the  States,  and  threatening  the  most  disastrous 
consequences  to  the  whole  Union. 

1.  In  discussing  the  constitutional  power,  we  abjure  at  once  all 
considerations  of  danger  in  its  exercise.  If  there  be  any,  of  the 
frightful  character  which  has  been  supposed,  they  address  them- 
selves to  the  sound  discretion  of  Congress,  when  called  upon  to 
make  any  specific  appropriation ;  but  they  have  no  bearing  what- 
ever upon  the  enquiry,  wh'ether  the  power  itself  exists.  And  we 
cannot  but  lament  the  perversity  which  seeks  to  intimidate  from  a 
frank,  deliberate  and  thorough  investigation  of  the  constitutional 
provisions  on  this  or  any  other  subject,  by  exaggerated  appeals  to 
the  fears  or  prejudices  of  our  citizens.  It  betrays  a  consciousness 
of  weakness,  thus  to  block  up  the  very  portals  of  truth.  We  are 
bound  to  presume  that  the  illustrious  men  who  devoted  so  much 
time  and  anxious  deliberation  to  the  embodying  the  elements  of  a 
free  government  for  themselves  and  their  posterity,  were  not  so 
incompetent  to  their  task,  as  to  have  adopted  any  provision  which 
would  produce  the  frauds,  national  demoralization  and  bank- 
ruptcy which  have  been  so  freely  predicted.  Our  enquiry  now 
is,  what  is  the  law  and  the  testimony — what  provision  does 
the  Constitution  in  fact  make  ?  not  what  it  ought  to  make. 
And  we  utterly  deny  that  the  liability  to  abuse  of  any  supposed 
power  in  a  government,  is  any  argument  whatever  to  prove  that 
such  power  does  not  exist.  For  the  undeniable  truth  is,  that  no 
government  ever  has  been  or  can  be  created,  without  possessing  pow- 
ers which  may  be  used  to  the  injury,  and  even  ruin  of  its  subjects, 
and  to  its  own  destruction.  It  is  very  true,  that  on  the  threshold  of 
the  enquiry,  it  will  occur  to  every  mind  to  ask,  whether  the  power 
claimed  is  one  which  civilized  governments  usually  possess  ;  and  if 
it  be  utterly  unknown  in  the  history  of  the  world,  such  as  never 
has  been  hitherto  required  by  the  wants  of  any  community ;  then 
indeed  the  keenest  vigilance  may  well  be  aroused  to  insist  upon 
the  clearest  proofs  of  the  most  express  and  unequivocal  grant  of  the 
power,  and  to  watch  most  closely  for  any  defect  in  the  chain  of  ar- 


gument  to  prove  its  existence.  But  if,  on  the  contrary,  it  be  a 
power  which  every  other  government  in  Christendom  is  admitted  to 
possess — which  has  always  been  exercised  by  every  government 
hitherto  existing — a  power  essential  to  the  progress  of  civilization, 
without  which  agriculture  must  languish  and  labor  be  unrewarded, 
commerce  and  trade  must  be  impeded  and  intercourse  obstructed  ; 
then  the  enquirer  will  approach  the  investigation  in  a  different  spirit. 
While  he  will  still  require  satisfactory  evidence,  he  will  be  prepared 
to  give  a  favorable  ear  to  what  may  be  adduced  to  establish  the  fact 
of  such  a  power  having  been  granted. 

It  certainly  cannot  be  necessary  for  your  memorialists  to  do  more 
than  ask  any  intelligent  mind,  to  which  of  these  classes  belongs  the 
power  of  opening  intercourse  between  the  various  sections  of  our 
vast  country — the  power  of  finishing  what  the  God  of  nature  began 
when  he  established  the  mighty  rivers  and  the  still  more  mighty 
lakes  which  mark  this  continent  1 

Before  advancing  further  in  this  enquiry,  let  us  endeavor  to  un- 
derstand exactly  the  extent  of  the  power  over  this  subject,  claimed 
for  Congress  by  the  Convention,  whose  declaration  of  sentiments  is 
now  before  you, — and  it  is  the  more  necessary  in  consequence  of  the 
exaggerations  and  misrepresentations  with  which  the  public  ear  has 
been  abused. 

Its  advocates  have  been  described,  as  seeking  to  establish  a  sys- 
tem of  rapacity,  by  which  unscrupulous  men  would  enhance  the  va- 
lue of  petty  localities  in  which  they  are  interested,  at  the  public  ex- 
pense ;  and  in  respect  to  which  the  people  themselves  are  repre- 
sented as  so  profligate,  as  to  form  extensive  and  dangerous  combi- 
nations to  render  such  schemes  successful.  What  then  does  the 
Convention  really  claim  1  Their  first  proposition  asserts  that 
the  Constitution  was  framed  and  mainly  designed  "  to  create 
a  government  whose  functions  should  and  wTould  be  adequate 
to  the  protection  of  the  common  interests  of  all  the  States,  or 
of  two  or  more  of  them,  which  interests  could  not  be  maintain- 
ed by  the  action  of  the  separated  States."  The  second  propo- 
sition applies  this  undeniable  principle  to  internal  trade  and 
navigation,"  wherever  the  concurrence  of  two  or  more  States  is  ne- 
cessary to  its  preservation,  or  where  the  expense  of  its  maintenance 


should  equitably  be  borne  by  two  or  more  States,  and  where  of 
course  those  States  must  necessarily  have  a  voice  in  its  regulation." 
Such  trade  and  navigation  could  not  be  maintained  by  the  action  of 
the  separated  States,  and  therefore  if  any  provision  was  to  be  made 
for  its  protection  and  assistance,  it  must  necessarily  be  by  the  gene- 
ral government. 

Such  then  are  the  clear  and  well  defined  limitations  of  the  power 
in  question,  set  forth  by  the  Chicago  Convention,  and  they  afford  in 
themselves  the  best  answer  to  the  idle  declamation  wich  represents 
the  friends  of  internal  improvement  as  seeking  to  establish  a  system 
which  has  no  other  limits  than  the  "discretion  of  Congress."  The 
mind  which  is  really  incapable  of  perceiving  any  intermediate 
grounds  between  the  power  to  improve  the  great  channels  of  inter- 
course common  to  two  or  more  States,  and  the  authority  to  make 
\\  turnpikes  and  canals  within  States,  must  be  beyond  the  reach  of  ar- 
gument. That  even  within  the  limits  thus  defined,  there  will  neces- 
sarily be  room  for  discretion  in  the  selection  of  objects  of  improve- 
ment, we  would  not  deny.  And  when  it  is  shown  that  there  is  any 
one  power  of  human  governments  that  is  not  equally  and  unavoida- 
bly open  to  a  like  discretion,  but  not  till  then,  we  will  admit  that 
the  fact,  that  choice  and  selection  may  be  exercised  in  reference  to 
the  subjects  of  a  power,  is  sufficient  in  itself  to  show  that  the  power 
cannot  exist !  in  other  words,  that  a  legislative  body  is  not  to 
be  permitted  to  exercise  judgment  and  caution,  and  to  regard  utility 
or  economy  in  its  enactments.  When  a  constitution  shall  be  framed 
upon  such  principles  as  to  deny  all  discretion  to  the  legislative  body, 
there  will  be  little  occasion  for  such  a  cumbrous  and  expensive  ma- 
chinery. 

Your  memorialists  regret  that  it  should  be  necessary  to  offer  an 
extended  argument  to  prove  the  accuracy  of  the  position  assumed 
by  the  declaration  of  sentiments  accompanying  this  memorial,  in 
respect  to  the  power  of  Congress  to  make  appropriations  for  improve- 
ments of  the  character  already  indicated.  That  power  is  deduced 
from  the  express  grant  u  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations 
and  among  the  States,"  and  the  concurrent  and  continuous  exercise 
of  the  power  from  the  commencement  of  the  government,  with  the 
sanction  of  the  people,  as  declaratory  of  the  sense  in  wrhich  the  grant 
was  understood  by  all  parties. 


The  fact  of  such  a  practical  construction  having  been  given,  is 
so  clearly  and  summarily  stated  by  the  late  President  Jackson, 
that  we  prefer  to  use  his  own  words  in  one  of  his  messages  to  Con- 
gress :  "The  practice,"  he  says,  "  of  defraying  out  of  the  Treasury 
of  the  United  States,  the  expenses  incurred  by  the  establishment 
and  support  of  light  houses,  beacons,  buoys  and  public  piers,  with- 
in the  bays,  inlets,  and  harbors  and  ports  of  the  United  States,  to 
render  the  navigation  thereof  safe  and  easy,  is  coeval  with  the  adop- 
tion ot  the  Constitution  and  has  been  continued  without  interrup- 
tion or  dispute." 

We  may  add,  that  one  of  the  first  acts  passed  at  the  first  ses- 
sion of  the  very  first  Congress  under  the  Constitution,  was  for  the 
establishment  of  light-houses,  buoys,  beacons  and  public  piers. 
Many  of  those  who  had  been  conspicuous  in  the  debates  of  the  Con- 
vention were  members  of  that  Congress  ;  there  is  no  evidence  of  any 
opposition  to  the  act ;  and  it  was  approved  and  signed  by  Washing- 
ton. At  the  last  session  of  Congress,  an  act  was  passed  making 
large  appropriations  for  the  erection  of  light-houses,  buoys  and  bea- 
cons, and  establishing  of  light  boats,  at  various  points  on  the  At- 
lantic and  upon  the  lakes,  and  upon  the  rivers  emptying  into  them. 

It  has  been  contended  however,  that  the  power  of  the  govern- 
ment thus  uninterruptedly  exereised  from  its  foundation,  to  erect  light- 
houses, &c,  is  derived  not  from  their  authority  "  to  regulate  com- 
merce," but  from  that  clause  in  the  Constitution,  which  authorises 
Congress  to  exercise  exclusive  legislation  over  the  territory  which 
should  become  the  seat  of  the  Federal  Government,  "  and  to  exer- 
cise like  authority  over  all  places  purchased  by  the  consent  of  the 
legislaiure  of  the  State  in  which  the  same  shall  be,  for  the  erection 
of  forts,  magazine, s  arsenals,  dockyards  and  other  needful  build- 
ings ;"  then  by  further  contending  that  the  consent  of  the  State 
was,  by  this  clause,  required  "  to  the  erection  of  forts,  magazines," 
etc.;  it  has  been  argued  that  this  is  inconsistent  with  the  idea,  that 
Congress  possessed  this  power  under  other  grants  in  the  Constitu- 
tion. The  mistake  in  this  argument  is  evident  in  not  adverting  to 
the  real  object  of  the  clause  in  question,  which  was  not  to  confer 
any  new  power  to  erect  these  buildings,  cr  to  purchase  the  lands  re- 
quired for  the  purpose,  but  simply  to  give  Congress  exclusive  juris, 
diction  over  such  places  as  should  be  purchased  with  the  consent  of 
the  States  so  that  there  should  not  be  a  divided  empire  between  the 
General  and  State  Governments. 


10 

In  accordance  with  this  view  the  highest  jaclicial  federal  authority 
has  decided,  (3  Wheaton,  388,)  that  Congress  may  purchase  land 
for  a  fort  or  light-house,  and  erect  such  buildings,  without  the  con- 
sent of  the  State,  but  in  such  cases  the  jurisdiction  remains  in  the 
State,  aud  cannot  be  acquired  by  the  United  States  otherwise  than 
by  a  cession,  which  is  to  be  the  free  act  of  the  State. 

This  was  actually  the  case  in  respect  to  Fort  Niagara,  which  was 
held  for  many  years  by  the  United  States,  without  any  cession  by 
the  State  ;  and  it  was  held  by  the  courts  of  New-York,  that  the 
State  not  having  ceded  its  jurisdiction  by  consenting  to  the  purchase 
or  otherwise,  it  remained  unimpaired.  But  when  the  State  consents 
to  the  purchase,  the  jurisdiction  at  once  passes  to  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment.    (17  Johnson,  225.) 

The  clause  referred  to,  it  will  be  perceived  therefore,  does  not 
give  the  authority  to  Congress  to  erect  forts,  magazines,  or  other 
needful  buildings,  but  gives  jurisdiction  over  the  land  upon  which 
they  are  erected,  when  the  purchase  of  such  land  has  been  made 
with  the  assent  of  the  State.  And  the  fact  that  it  does  not  give  the 
authority  to  purchase  land  for  those  purposes,  or  to  erect  the  build- 
ings specified,  but  provides  for  the  contingency  of  its  being  purchas- 
ed, and  confers  jurisdiction  when  such  purchase  has  been  made, 
with  the  consent  of  the  State,  is  in  itself  the  strongest  evidence  that 
the  framers  of  the  Constitution  believed  such  authority  had  already 
been  given. 

And  yet,  there  is  certainly  no  part  of  the  Constitution,  which  can 
be  cited  to  justify  such  purchases  or  the  erection  of  such  buildings 
and  public  piers  and  beacons,  or  the  establishing  of  light  boats,  but 
that  to  which  we  have  so  often  referred,  the  power  to  regulate  com- 
merce. And  thus  the  clause  of  the  Constitution  which  was  suppos- 
ed to  invalidate  this  power,  in  fact  becomes  the  strongest  evidence 
of  its  existence,  and  taken  in  connexion  with  the  practice  of  the 
Government,  becomes  conclusive  and  irresistable.  It  surely  needs 
no  argument  to  show  that  the  buoys  and  boats,  and  piers  and  light- 
houses, thus  erected  by  the  Government,  are  not,  in  themselves, 
commerce.  They  are  only  facilities  for  its  enjoyment.  But  the 
moment  the  principle  is  admitted,  that  Congress  may  rightfully  ap- 
propriate money  to  promote  any  such  facility,  there  is  no  limit 
to  it  but  the  sound  discretion  of  the  representatives  of  the  People  and 
,  of  the  States,  and  other  constitutional  provisions,  as  to  the  mode  of 
its  exercise.     And  hence  we  invoke  the  high  authority  not  only  of 


11 

all  preceding  administrations,  but  also  of  the  present  President  of 
the  United  States,  in  approving  the  act  passed  at  the  last  session 
of  Congress  before  mentioned,  as  an  unequivocal  sanction  of  the 
powers  of  that  body  to  regulate  commerce,  by  furnishing  facilities 
for  its  enjoyment. 

Of  the  same  character  are  the  appropriations  for  the  survey  of 
the  coast  of  the  United  States.  In  1807,  an  act  was  passed  by 
which  the  President  was  authorised  to  cause  a  survey  of  the  coast 
of  the  United  States  to  be  taken,  "in  which  shall  be  designated  the 
islands  and  shoals,  with  the  roads  or  places  of  anchorage  within, 
twenty  leagues  of  any  part  of  the  shores  of  the  United  States,"  and 
also  u  to  cause  such  examinations  and  observations  to  be  made, 
with  respect  to  St.  George's  bank,  and  any  other  bank  or  shoal,  and 
the  soundings  and  currents  beyond  the  distance  aloresaid  to  the  gulf 
stream,  as  in  his  opinion  may  be  specially  subservient  to  the  com- 
mercial interests  of  the  United  States."  These  surveys  were  warm- 
ly recommended  by  committees  of  Congress,  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  rendering  facilities  to  commerce  ;  and  the  act,  above  quoted 
shows  that  such  was  the  object  of  Congress.  They  were  begun  under 
Mr.  Jefferson,  the  acknowledged  author  and  founder  of  the  system. 
It  has  been  continued,  with  temporary  suspensions,  caused  by  war 
or  the  preparations  for  hostilities,  from  1S07  to  this  day,  the  regular 
annual  appropriations  continuing  through  the  administrations  of 
General  Jackson  and  of  all  his  successors,  to  and  including  the  last 
session  of  Congress,  when  one  hundred  and  forty-six  thousand  dol- 
lars were  appropriated,  with  the  approbation  of  the  present  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States. 

Utterly  vain  must  be  any  attempt  to  deduce  the  power  to  make 
these  appropriations  from  any  other  grant  in  the  Constitution  but  that 
"  to  regulate  commerce."  Their  character  and  purpose  is  declared, 
not  only  by  the  avowed  object  stated  in  the  first  act  on  the  subject 
and  by  the  cotemporaneous  documentary  history,  but  by  the  fact  that 
the  military  and  naval  departments  have  no  control  whatever  over 
the  subject,  and  that  it  is  placed,  as  a  commercial  measure,  under 
the  supervision  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  The  amounts 
appropriated  have  been  so  large,  exceeding  probably  two  millions 
of  dollars,  that  it  is  impossible  they  should  have  been  made  without 
deliberation. 

In  reference  to  this  power  to  regulate  commerce,  we  have  the  au- 
thority of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  for  saying,  that 


12 

under  its  sanction  Congress  may  suspend  and  prohibit  commerce, 
and  may  not  only  authorise  importations,  but  may  authorise  the 
importer  to  sell,  (12  Wheaton  447)  ;  and  that  commerce  is  not 
merely  traffic,  but  is  intercourse,  and  includes  navigation.  (9  Whea- 
ton 189.) 

Having  thus  seen  in  what  sense  the  framers  of  the  Constitution, 
the  Legislature  and  the  courts  have  hitherto  understood  the  power 
"to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations  and  among  the  States," 
the  subject  will  appear  in  a  still  clearer  light  when  we  find  that  the 
same  construction  has  been  given  to  the  same  power  when  applied 
to  the  remaining  subject  of  the  same  clause,  "  and  with  the  Indian 
tribes." 

From  the  earliest  periods  of  our  government,  there  has  been  one 
uniform  course  of  legislation  under  this  power,  without  impediment 
and  without  question,  which  has  assumed  the  absolute  right  of  pro- 
viding for  the  health,  the  morals,  the  instruction  and  the  subsistence 
of  these  people.  Agents  are  to  be  provided  with  vaccine  matter,  at 
the  public  expense,  to  prevent  the  spread  of  the  small-pox  among  them; 
they  are  to  be  furnished  with  useful  domestic  animals  and  implements 
of  husbandry,  and  they  are  to  be  instructed  in  agriculture  ;  their  chil- 
dren are  to  be  taught  the  common  branches  of  education  ;  and  ap- 
propriations have  been  made  for  geological  and  mineralogical  re- 
searches in  their  country.  It  will  not  be  pretended  that  Congress 
has  any  authority  to  pass  such  laws  in  relation  to  white  citizens  or 
the  territory  of  the  States  ;  and  the  only  possible  ground  on  which 
they  have  been  or  can  be  maintained,  is  the  authority  "  to  regulate 
commerce  with  the  Indian  tribes." 

But  further  and  very  satisfactory  evidence  of  the  meaning  of  the 
terms  in  discussion,  may  be  derived  from  the  use  of  similar  lan- 
guage in  other  parts  of  the  Constitution.  The  second  clause  of 
section  3,  article  2,  contains  expressions  identical  with  those  we 
have  been  discussing.  It  is  thus  :  "  the  Congress  shall  have  power 
to  dispose  of  and  make  all  needful  rules  and  regulations  respecting 
the  territory  and  other  property  belonging  to  the  United  States." 
No  difference  can  be  stated  between  the  authority  "to  regulate  com- 
merce," and  that  now  quoted,  "  to  make  needful  rules  and  regula- 
tions respecting  the  territory." 

Under  this  latter  power,  for  there  is  confessedly  none  other  that 
can  reach  the  subject,  the  Federal  Government  has,  from  its  earli- 
est date  to  this  day,  legislated  for  the  territories  as  fully  and  exten- 


13 

sively  as  any  State  for  its  inhabitants.  Governments  have  been 
organised,  the  salaries  of  the  officers  paid,  public  buildings  for  their 
accommodation  erected,  schools  and  seminaries  of  learning  provided, 
and  systems  of  municipal  law  established  for  them  by  Congress. 
And,  that  nothing  may  be  wanting  to  complete  the  parallel  which 
we  have  instituted  between  the  power  "to  legulate  "  in  one  case 
and  the  power  "  to  make  regulations  "  in  the  other,  in  its  applica- 
tion to  the  very  subject  under  consideration,  viz  :  the  authority  to 
make  internal  improvements  in  order  to  facilitate  commerce  and  in- 
tercourse, we  find  the  Federal  Government,  from  the  year  1806 
down  to  and  including  the  last  Congress,  constantly  and  annually 
making  appropriations  of  money  and  land,  to  lay  out  and  construct 
roads  in  the  different  territories,  and  to  improve  the  navigation  of 
their  rivers. 

We  mean  no  offensive  crimination  by  the  remark,  that  during  the 
many  years  when  the  present  incumbent  of  the  Executive  chair 
served  as  a  member  of  Congress,  we  do  not  find  any  exceptions 
taken  by  him,  or  by  any  one  else,  to  this  continued  exercise  of  the 
power  to  make  regulations  for  the  territories,  by  the  appropria- 
tions referred  to  ;  but  we  state  the  fact  for  the  purpose  of  quoting 
his  high  authority  in  favor  of  the  construction,  which  we  claim 
should  be  given  to  that  and  the  similar  power  to  regulate  com 
merce. 

This  construction  of  the  power  in  relation  to  territories,  is  noticed 
by  the  late  chief  justice  Marshall,  in  4  Wheaton  422,  in  delivering 
the  opinion  of  the  Supreme  Court,  as  having  been  universally  ad- 
mitted. 

The  sense  in  which  human  language  is  to  be  understood,  is  that 
which  the  speaker  or  writer  intends  to  convey,  and  which  is  at  the 
time  conveyed  to  him  who  is  addressed,  as  evinced  by  the  acts  of 
both.  The  exact  meaning  of  words  may  be  doubtful,  but  they  are 
rendered  precise  and  certain  by  accompanying  and  continuous  acts. 
This  is  the  basis  of  all  interpretation.  Guided  by  a  rule  so  simple 
and  plain,  and  of  such  constant  use,  we  are  not  to  apply  the  micro- 
scope to  the  mere  shell  which  contains  the  spirit  of  our  constitu- 
tional provisions,  as  if  we  were  examining  a  special  pleading,  but 
we  are  to  look  at  the  whole  scope  and  design,  as  developed  by  a 
comparison  of  the  different  parts,  and  by  the  uniform,  uninterrupted 
and  unquestioned  construction  given  by  legislators,  executives  and 
judges,  upon  the  responsibility  of  their  oaths,  and  sanctioned  by  the 


14 

acquiescence  of  the  whole  people.  And  we  cannot  sum  up  the 
whole  argument  on  this  point  in  a  more  condensed  form  than  that 
given  by  the  late  President  Jackson,  that  "the  public  good  and  the 
nature  of  our  political  institutions,  require  that  individual  differences 
should  yield  to  a  well  settled  acquiescence  of  the  people,  and  con- 
federated authorities  on  particular  constructions  of  the  Constitution 
on  doubtful  points." 

An  attempt  has  been  made  to  limit  the  application  of  the  phrase 
"  regulate  commerce,"  to  such  commerce  as  already  existed,  upon 
the  assumption  that  it  implied  the  pre-existence  of  the  thing  to  be  re- 
gulated. We  submit,  however,  that  the  assumption  is  false  in  fact  and 
in  theory.  The  power  to  regulate  is  a  power  to  rule,  with  which  it  is 
synonimous,  and  expresses  the  most  unlimited  authority  of  govern- 
ment over  the  whole  subject  matter,  and  all  its  incidents,  and  so  far 
from  being  exclusively  applied  to  subjects  in  existence, it  ordinarily  in 
practice  precedes  and  anticipates  the  action  to  be  regulated.  And  to 
exhibit  the  absurdity  of  the  criticism  we  are  examining,  we  have  only 
to  state  its  results  almost  in  the  language  of  its  authors.  Thus,  if  a 
river  be  already  navigable,  and  a  commerce  is  carried  on  from  its 
mouth  to  the  port  of  another  state,  it  may  be  u  regulated  j"  but  if  a 
sandbar  at  its  mouth  should  prevent  vessels  within  it  from  launching 
into  the  ocean  or  the  lakes,  to  reach  another  State,  it  would  be  be- 
yond the  reach  of  the  regulating  power  of  Congress,  because  a  com- 
merce would  thus  be  created !  And  such  refinements,  worthy  of 
the  ancient  polemics,  are  gravely  attributed  to  the  practical  men 
who  framed  our  Constitution.  It  so  happens,  however,  that  even 
this  subtlety  is  wholly  inapplicable  to  any  appropriation  that  has  hi- 
therto passed  either  House  of  Congress,  for  none  has  proposed  the 
improvement  of  any  harbor  or  river  that  had  not  already  some  com- 
merce. 

But  there  is  another  source  of  the  power  to  improve  rivers,  har- 
bors, and  roadsteads,  and  which  contains  authority,  if  necessary, 
even  to  create  harbors  and  channels  of  communication.  We  refer 
to  the  power  ll  to  lay  and  collect  taxes,  duties,  imposts  and  ex- 
cises, to  pay  the  debts  and  provide  for  the  common  defence  and 
general  welfare  of  the  United  States."  Taxes  and  imposts  may 
be  levied  to  pay  the  debts,  and  provide  for  the  common  defence 
of  the  Union.  It  follows,  that  the  proceeds  of  such  taxes  and 
imposts  may  be  appropriated  to  those  objects;  and  accordingly  un- 


15 

tier  this  power  of  appropriations  for  the  common  defence,  coupled 
with  those  of  declaring  war,  of  raising  armies,  and  maintaining  a 
navy — forts,  magazines,  arsenals,  manufactories  of  arms  and  military 
roads,  navy  yards  and  dry  and  other  docks,  have  been  established 
and  maintained  from  the  day  the  Constitution  was  adopted  to  this 
moment;  and  appropriations  for  them  or  some  of  them  have  been 
passed  at  every  session  of  Congress,  without  exception  from  any 
quarter.  Let  it  be  observed,  that  here  is  no  latitudinarian  expansion 
of  the  phrase,  "  general  welfare,"  so  obnoxious  to  certain  casuists, 
but  a  plain  and  downright  application,  in  good  faith,  of  a  power 
given  for  definite  and  precise  objects — the  common  defence  and  the 
employment  of  armies  and  of  a  navy.  This  "  common  "  defence 
of  the  whole,  necessarily  includes  the  parts,  and  the  power  must  be 
exercised  in  detail  or  not  at  all. 

Can  it  be  doubted  that  the  removal  of  shoals,  bars  and  snags  in 
rivers,  in  order  to  facilitate  the  transmission  of  the  munitions  of  war 
to  the  frontier  and  every  exposed  part  of  our  country,  would  be  as 
legitimate  an  exercise  of  the  power  to  provide  for  the  common  de- 
fence, as  the  establishment  of  magazines,  or  manufactories  of  arms, 
or  the  casting  of  cannon  1  The  munitions  of  war  provided,  and  the 
weapons  manufactured,  would  be  of  little  use  without  the  means  of 
conveying  them  to  the  points  needing  the  supply. 

And  with  respect  to  harbors,  the  eleventh  of  the  propositions  con- 
tained in  the  declaration  of  sentiments  herewith  transmitted,  states 
so  clearly  the  right  of"  the  citizens  inhabiting  the  country  bordering 
on  the  interior  lakes  and  rivers,  to  such  safe  and  convenient  harbors 
as  may  afford  shelter  to  a  navy,"  and  the  duty  of  the  government  to 
afford  them  such  protection,  that  the  undersigned  can  add  very  little 
to  enforce  the  right,  or  to  render  the  duty  more  obvious.  The  im- 
partial and  disinterested  officers  of  your  own  appointment  have  cer- 
tified to  you,  that  along  the  whole  chain  of  lakes,  extending  four- 
teen hundred  miles  between  our  territories  and  those  of  a  foreign 
power,  there  is  such  a  deficiency  of  safe  harbors  of  easy  entrance, 
that  the  military  and  commercial  marine  upon  these  lakes  is  abso- 
lutely at  the  mercy  of  the  winds  and  the  waves.  And  they  have  shown 
you,  that,  from  the  peculiar  dangers  of  the  navigation  and  the  want 
of  sea  room,  capacious  harbors  are  more  vitally  important  there, 
than  on  the  Atlantic  coast.  It  may  happen  too,  that  disadvantageous 
circumstances  may  render  a  convenient  harbor  the  only  security 
against  the  capture  of  your  ships  by  an  enemy.     It  is  not  necessary 


16 

to  compare  the  relative  importance  of  accessible  harbors  to  the 
maintenance  of  a  fleet,  with  navy  yards  and  docks  ;  it  is  sufficient 
that  they  are  of  the  same  character,  and  are  equally  il  necessary  and 
proper."  It  would  be  far  more  difficult,  in  the  view  of  your  memo- 
rialists, to  deduce  the  authority  to  build  an  executive  mansion  for 
the  President  of  the  United  States,  or  to  purchase,  repair  and  main- 
tain a  Congressional  burying  ground,  from  any  specific  grant  of 
power  in  the  Constitution,  than  to  show  that  the  power  of  improv- 
ing the  channels  of  trade  and  intercourse  between  the  States,  may 
be  inferred  from  this  power  to  provide  for  the  common  defence. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  other  sources  of  the  power  in  question 
may  appear  to  different  minds,  adequate  to  the  purpose.  But  the 
undersigned  are  content  to  rest  the  claim  which  they  prefer  in  be- 
half of  their  constituents,  upon  the  grants  of  power  stated  in  the 
"  Declaration  of  Sentiments,"  and  herein  considered.  It  was  well 
remarked  by  distinguished  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  9th 
Wheaton,  that  "  the  same  measures  may  be  arranged  with  different 
classes  of  powers,"  and  that  ll  the  same  measures  may  flow  from 
distinct  powers,"  under  our  Constitution.  And  he  must  be  little  ac- 
quainted with  the  history  of  governments,  who  would  urge  as  an 
objection  to  any  specific  power,  that  its  friends  claimed  that  it  might 
be  exercised  under  different  and  harmonious  provisions. 

But  we  hear  it  said  that  the  Constitution  does  not  confer  on  Con- 
gress, the  power  to  regulate  commerce  by  commencing  and  carrying 
on  a  "  general  system  of  internal  improvement ;"  as  if  the  objec- 
tion was  not  to  any  particular  work,  but  to  a  general  system.  We 
confess  our  inability  to  perceive  the  force  or  the  reason  of  this  dis- 
tinction. If  any  particular  work  can  be  justified  by  the  importance 
of  the  commercial  exigency  which  demands  it,  is  not  the  power  of 
Congress  to  facilitate  commerce  by  any  other  similar  work  admitted  1 
And  if  any  work,  in  the  judgment  of  Congress,  possesses  the  requi- 
sites to  bring  it  within  the  constitutional  provision,  does  it  cease  to 
possess  them  because  the  commercial  facilities  it  affords,  may  be 
augmented  by  its  connexion  with  other  kindred  works  1  Thus,  the 
immense  commercial  cargoes  which  now  descend  from  Lake  Michi- 
gan  to  the  Ocean,  in  their  passage  meet  successively  the  obstruc- 
tions on  the  flats  of  Lake  St.  Clair, — in  the  harbor  of  Buffalo, — 
and  in  the  Overslaugh  of  the  Hudson.  The  works  needed  to  re- 
move these  three  separate  impediments,  each  highly  necessary  in  it- 
self, will  be  still  more  useful  when  all  are  completed — and  when 
constructed  will  naturally  and  necessarily  group  themselves  togeth- 


17 

er,  and  become  portions  of  a  system.  But  does  this  afford  any  rea- 
son why  each  particular  work  should  not  be  constructed  1  On  the 
contrary  does  it  not  gradually  strengthen  the  inducement  for  build- 
in  o-  them  all, — and  that  too  on  a  harmonious  plan;  so  that  each  por- 
tion may  add  to  the  value  of  the  whole  %  As  well  might  we  object 
to  the  general  system  of  fortifications  on  the  seaboard,  that  although 
each  separate  work  of  the  series  might  be  requisite  for  the  common 
defence,  yet  that  no  power  existed  to  unite  them  in  a  uniform  plan. 

Under  the  general  and  comprehensive  power  to  regulate  commerce 
between  the  States,  we  claim  then,  that  the  facilities  which  Congress 
may  constitutionally  afford,  are  co-extensive  with  that  commerce, 
and  necessarily  extend  to  and  embrace  every  portion  of  the  Union. 
That  it  would  be  alike  unwise,  unjust  and  repugnant  to  the  spirit  of 
the  Constitution,  to  lavish  the  public  funds  upon  favorite  objects  in 
a  few  States,  and  exclude  from  just  participation  other  and  equally 
meritorious  and  necessary  objects  in  other  States, — and  so  far  from 
questioning  the  power  of  Congress  to  combine  these  proper  objects 
of  national  improvement  in  a  general  plan  or  system,  we  maintain 
it  to  be  their  peculiar  duty,  as  far  as  practicable  to  construct  each 
work  in  reference^  its  harmonious  connexion  with  thewhole.  And 
in  taking  this  view  of  the  subject,  our  quotation  of  the  vague  ex- 
pression "  internal  improvements,"  must  not  be  misunderstood. 
We  refer  to  works  of  national  importance  which  will  essentially  fa- 
cilitate "  commerce  among  the  States,"  and  not  to  "  improvements" 
purely  local. 

With  respect  to  the  objection  which  has  sometimes  been  urged 
of  want  of  jurisdiction  in  the  United  States,  to  enter  upon  and  oc- 
cupy lands  and  waters  to  construct  and  maintain  the  required  im- 
provements, it  may  be  remarked,  that  if  the  power  to  regulate  com- 
merce includes,  as  we  maintain,  the  authority  to  facilitate  its  ope- 
rations, then  all  the  means  and  incidents  "  necessary  and  proper," 
are  by  the  terms  of  the  Constitution  given  also  ;  and  these  must  ne- 
cessarily include  jurisdiction  for  the  purpose.  And  this  has  been 
exemplified  by  the  laws  of  Congress  authorising  the  erection  of 
light-houses  on  the  shores  of  the  lakes  and  interior  rivers,  and  re- 
gulating steam  vessels  navigating  those  waters.  So  far  from  ques- 
tioning the  full  authority  of  tl  e  General  Government,  it  would  be 
much  more  easy  to  doubt  the  power  of  any  State  to  exercise  juris- 
diction over  navigable  waters  common  to  two  or  more  States,  and 
which  were  necessary  to  "commerce  among  the  States." 

3 


13 

And  even  if  it  were  admitted  that  the  separate  States  might  ex- 
ercise such  jurisdiction,  a  serious  if  not  insuperable  obstacle  is  inter- 
posed by  the  Constitution  to  any  permanent  or  efficient  co-operation 
by  States  having  navigable  waters  in  common,  for  the  purpose  of 
improving  the  navigation  of  such  waters.  This  could  be  accom- 
plished only  by  prospective  arrangements  to  assess  the  proportions 
of  expense,  to  preserve  and  repair  the  works  constructed,  and  to 
provide  the  necessary  supervision  for  their  maintainance.  These 
objects  would  require  the  adoption  of  mutual  stipulations,  which 
should  reach  far  into  the  future.  These,  however,  would  constitute 
"  a  treaty",  and  that  is  absolutely  prohibited  by  the  10th  section 
of  the  first  article  of  the  Constitution,  which  declares  that  "no  State 
shall  enter  into  any  treaty,  alliance  or  confederation." 

And  these  considerations  in  themselves  furnish  a  strong  argument 
in  favor  of  the  power  of  Congress,  for  they  prove  that  it  can  exist  no 
where  else. 

Having  thus  shown  what  were  the  avowed  objects  of  the  Con- 
vention that  appointed  the  undersigned,  in  relation  to  internal  im- 
provements, and  rescued  it  from  the  misrepresentations  which  per- 
verted those  objects ;  and  having,  as  we  trust,  vindicated  the  power 
of  Congress  to  appropriate  money  for  those  objects,  we  will  now 
proceed  to  discuss  the  expediency  of  the  exercise  of  that  power. 

Before  doing  so,  permit  us  to  remark  that  there  are  duties  and  obli- 
gations of  governments  and  of  those  who  administer  them,  which 
cannot  be  extinguished  by  any  considerations  of  expediency.  As 
an  instance,  provisions  for  the  common  defence  of  the  country,  ac- 
cording to  its  means,  may  not  be  neglected.  All  vaticinations  of 
the  dangers  that  may  arise  from  the  performance  of  the  duty,  can 
have  no  influence  upon  those  who  have  accepted  office  under  an  en- 
gagement to  obey  the  injunctions  of  the  Constitution.  If,  like  some 
of  the  religious  denominations  among  us,  they  are  conscientiously, 
from  any  cause,  opposed  to  the  execution  of  the  power,  their  plain 
duty  as  honest  men,  is  to  give  place  to  those  whose  constitutional 
phantasies  or  conscientious  scruples  are  not  in  conflict  with  their 
vows. 

And  viewing  the  federal  government  in  its  relations  to  the  States, 
there  is  a  source  of  honorable  obligation,  more  sacred  if  possible, 
than  the  plain  injunctions  of  the  Constitution.  This  arises  from  the 
fact,  that  by  that  instrument,  the  revenues  derived  from  commerce 
were  surrendered  by  the  States  to  the  General  Government,  for  the 
purpose  and  with  the  sole  object  of  having  them  applied  to  the  com- 


19 

mon  interests  which  it  was  the  design  of  the  confederacy  to  protect 
and  maintain.  And  they  were  thus  surrendered  under  the  pledge 
given  in  the  preamble  of  the  Constitution,  that  it  was  framed  to 
provide  for  the  common  defence  and  promote  the  general  welfare. 
The  States  were  thus  deprived  of  the  appropricte  sources  of  revenue 
to  improve  and  increase  the  facilities  of  the  business  which  produced 
that  revenue  ;  and  they  were,  as  has  been  shown,  effectually  denied 
all  power  over  it.  Can  it  be  supposed  that  the  sagacious  advocates 
of  state  rights  and  interests  of  that  day,  intended  to  deliver  up  to  the 
care  of  the  Federal  Government  their  respective  States,  thus  stripped 
of  the  means  of  securing  the  first  elements  of  their  prosperity,  and 
thus  manacled  and  fettered,  without  an  equivalent  1  And  what  was 
that  equivalent?  The  only  one  which  the  case  admitted — namely, 
the  substitution  of  the  Federal  Government  for  the  exercise  of  those 
powers  and  the  performance  of  those  co-relative  duties,  which  the 
exigencies  of  the  confederacy  forbade  to  the  States.  In  the  very 
nature  ot  things  the  Federal  Government  took  the  place,  and  re- 
ceived the  powers,  and  thereby  assumed  those  duties  of  the  States 
respectively,  which  they  could  not  separately  exercise,  consistent 
with  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  whole.  This  was  the  great 
compromise  of  the  Constitution.  And  an  obligation  results  from  it, 
upon  the  Federal  Government,  which  it  is  not  at  liberty  to  evade  by 
suggestions  real  or  pretended,  of  the  difficulties  and  hazards  of  per- 
forming its  duty. 

But  what  are  these  difficulties  and  dangers  that  are  so  frequently 
paraded  with  all  the  aggravations  that  may  render  them  tragic,  to 
'*  frighten  us  from  our  propriety  1 "  Let  us  speak  to  them,  and  see 
whether,  like  other  apparitions  of  the  imagination,  they  will  not 
dissolve  in  the  light  of  day. 

By  classing  them,  we  will  better  understand  their  exact  dimen- 
sions. 

It  is  urged,  First,  That  combinations  of  individual  and  local  in- 
terests to  obtain  appropriations  for  interned  improvements,  will  be 
found  strong  enough  to  control  legislation,  absorb  the  revenues,  and 
plunge  the  country  into  hopeless  indebtedness. 

Second,  That  the  subject  is  liable  to  be  perverted  to  the  worst  of 
political  purposes. 

Third,  That  it  is  impossible,  in  the  nature  of  the  subject,  as  con- 
nected with  local  representation,  that  objects  of  internal  improve- 
ment should  be  weighed  according  to  their  respective  merits,  and 


20 

appropriations  confined  to  those  whose  importance  would  justify  the 
employment  of  the  revenue  of  the  whole  community. 

And  Fourth,  It  is  emphatically  asked,  where  shall  the  exercise  of 
the  power  stop  1 

A  general  reply  to  all  these  forebodings  of  evil,  is,  that  they  are 
precisely  such  as  have  always  been  proclaimed  by  the  adversaries 
of  free  government  and  of  popular  institutions,  in  Europe  and  in  this 
country.  Our  plan  of  a  representative  democracy,  in  which  popu- 
lar sentiment  should  be  felt,  was  always  regarded  by  them  as  preg- 
nant with  dangers.  Combinations  of  powerful  individuals,  of  great 
States  and  local  interests,  have  been  freely  predicted  as  the  inevita- 
ble result  of  the  wide  scope  given  for  their  operation,  by  our  insti- 
tutions. In  vain  have  we  urged  the  system  of  checks  interposed 
against  hasty  and  improvident  legislation.  In  vain  have  we  pointed 
to  the  diversified  interests  of  the  various  sections  of  our  country,  as 
affording  counteracting  influences  upon  each  other,  which  must  for- 
ever prevent  the  predominance  of  any  one  ;  to  the  lono-  term  of 
service  of  the  Senate,  and  to  the  Executive  veto,  and  finally  to 
the  judicial  power  to  arrest  unconstitutional  enactments.  We  have 
been  answered  by  references  to  the  ancient  republics  and  their  ina- 
bility to  restrain  combinations,  and  more  particularly  to  the  disas- 
trous results  of  the  French  revolution  of  1794,  as  having  been  pro- 
duced mainly  by  the  dictation  of  combined  clubs.  As  our  argu- 
ments seemed  to  make  no  impression,  we  quietly  wailed  for  the 
proof  of  the  sufficiency  of  our  government  to  maintain  liberty  con- 
sistently with  public  order  and  public  interests,  to  be  developed  by 
our  history.  Nearly  sixty  years  of  uninterrupted  prosperity,  with 
continual  concessions  to  popular  liberty,  have  furnished  the  expect- 
ed proof.  And  in  the  mean  while,  what  has  become  of  those  go- 
vernments in  which  it  was  supposed  the  dangers  to  be  apprehended 
from  these  combinations,  were  most  effectually  obviated  by  monar- 
chical or  aristocratic  power?  They  have  passed  away  and  evapo- 
rated, like  flax  at  the  touch  of  flame.  And  this  is  our  answer  to 
all  such  forebodings  ;  our  fathers  surveyed  the  ground  calmly  and 
deliberately,  they  were  fully  apprised  of  all  the  hazards  attending 
the  experiment,  and  yet  they  decided  that  the  happiness  of  them- 
selves and  their  posterity,  demanded  that  they  should  be  encoun- 
tered. 

Similar  predictions  of  evil  were  made  by  those  who  opposed  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution.     The  powers  of  Congress  were  repre- 


21 

sented  as  overshadowing  the  States ;  the  danger  of  combinations 
was  dwelt  upon,  and  State  sovereignty  and  individual  liberty  were 
to  be  absorbed  by  the  monster  of  their  imaginations.  The  patriotic 
Patrick  Henry,  as  their  chief  exponent,  objected  particularly  to  the 
power  of  taxation  given  to  Congress,  and  maintained  that  'cit  was 
impossible  to  select  any  subject  of  general  taxation  which  would  not 
operate  unequally  on  the  different  sections  of  the  Union,  produce 
discontent  and  heart-burnings  among  the  people,  and  most  probably 
terminate  in  open  resistance  to  the  laws."  He  objected  also  to  the 
power  of  raising  armies  and  building  navies,  and  to  the  control  of 
the  General  Government  over  the  militia,  which,  with  the  power  of 
taxation,  he  represented,  gave  to  Congress  the  sword  in  one  hand 
and  the  purse  in  the  other,  and  declared,  "unless  a  miracle  in  human 
affairs  shall  interpose, no  nation  ever  did,  or  can  ever  retain  its  liberty, 
after  the  loss  of  the  sword  and  the  purse."  The  treaty  making  power 
was  arraigned  as  a  most  dangerous  feature,  "inasmuch  as  it  put  it  in 
the  power  of  the  President  and  any  ten  Senators  who  might  represent 
the  five  smallest  States,  to  enter  into  the  most  ruinous  foreign  en- 
gagements, and  even  to  cede  away  the  territory  of  the  larger 
States."  That  the  pay  of  the  members  of  Congress  was  to  be  fixed 
by  themselves,  was  also  considered  a  very  dangerous  power. 
The  anticipations  of  evil  then  indulged,  might  be  multiplied  almost 
indefinitely.  But  these  are  sufficient  for  the  purpose  for  which  they 
are  adduced,  which  is  to  show  that  the  conceded  and  uncontro- 
verted  powers  of  Congres,  are  exposed  to  the  same  charges  of  lia- 
bility to  perversion,  abuse  and  corruption,  which  have  been  so  free- 
ly made  against  the  power  in  question,  and  to  show  also  the  utter 
fallacy  of  all  such  prophecies. 

Indeed,  it  is  inseparable  from  any  power  to  do  good,  that  it  may 
be  perverted  to  evil.  And  the  history  of  all  governments  establish- 
es one  melancholy  fact,  that  human  ingenuity  has  not  yet  devised 
any  perfect  remedy  for  human  infirmity.  The  theories  of  other 
governments  have  placed  the  check  on  this  liability  to  abuse,  in  the 
hands  of  a  few,  supposed  to  be  the  most  intelligent  and  virtuous  of 
the  community.  Our  theory  is  directly  the  reverse ;  it  places  the 
restraining  and  remedial  power  in  the  hands  of  the  many — of  the 
great  mass  who  are  interested  in  preserving  liberty,  restraining  fac- 
tious combinations,  and  sustaining  law  and  order.  To  say  then, 
that  the  people  themselves  are  or  will  become  so  corrupt  and  selfish 
that  they  cannot  be  trusted  in  the  choice  of  representatives  to  le- 


22 

gislate  on  this  or  any  other  subject — that  it  will  be  impossible  to 
have  just  and  rational  legislation  on  any  matter,  in  consequence  of 
combinations  of  individual  and  local  interests,  and  that  these  combi- 
nations are  liable  to  be  perverted  to  the  worst  of  political  purposes, 
is  in  effect  assailing  democracy  and  representive  governments  in 
their  very  citadel.  It  is  in  open  conflict  with  the  first  principle  of 
our  institutions — the  moral  and  political  capacity  of  the  people  to 
govern  themselves,  and  with  the  American  doctrine,  which  teaches 
that  there  is  more  safety  in  large  numbers — in  the  masses,  than  in  any 
individual,  whether  he  be  a  President  or  a  King. 

Having  ourselves  a  firm  faith  in  this  doctrine — a  faith  strength- 
ened  and  confirmed  by  our  own  history  and  by  what  is  passing  at 
this  moment  on  the  European  continent — a  faith  delivered  to  us  by 
our  fathers,  and  consecrated  by  their  blood,  we  cannot  surrender  it. 
Nor  do  we  believe  that  the  representatives  of  the  people  and  of  the 
States  in  Congress  will  be  the  first  to  renounce  and  repudiate  it,  by 
declaring  themselves  to  be  unworthy  and  incapable,  by  reason  of 
individual  and  local  interests,  to  legislate  upon  any  subject  commit- 
ted to  their  care  by  the  Constitution. 

But  we  deny  that  there  is  more  selfishness,  more  local  and  private 
interests  to  influence  legislation  on  the  subject  of  internal  improve- 
ments, than  upon  many  other  subjects  within  the  acknowledged 
competency  of  Congress.  Take,  for  instance,  the  power  to  lay  and 
collect  imposts ;  in  other  words,  the  establishment  of  a  tariff  of  du- 
ties on  importations.  Where  is  there  a  greater  opportunity  for  the 
combination  of  local  and  individual  interests,  to  promote  selfish  pur- 
poses at  the  expense  of  the  country'?  What  subject  is  more  liable 
to  be  perverted  to  political  purposes'?  What  presents  greater  diffi- 
culty as  connected  with  local  representation,  in  adjusting  the  proper 
subjects  for  revenue,  and  the  proper  amounts  to  be  charged  on 
them?  And  yet,  has  not  this  very  question  been  repeatedly  agita- 
ted in  Congress  and  disposed  of,  without  producing  any  of  those 
direful  consequences?  We  therefore  dismiss  these  fears  to  the  same 
tomb  that  contains  the  evil  prophecies  of  the  monarchists  of  Eu- 
rope. We  have  outlived  and  falsified  them.  We  have  proved 
thnt  our  people  are  not  so  selfish  and  unprincipled,  and  their  repre- 
sentatives are  not  so  corrupt  and  profligate,  as  to  be  unworthy  of  a 
power  to  legislate  upon  a  subject  of  the  deepest  interest  to  them- 
selves. 


23 

But  we  are  asked,  where  is  this  system  to  stop]  We  answer, 
where  the  necessities  of  foreign  commerce  and  commerce  among  the 
States  stop — when  the  country  has  adequate  harbors  for  the  shelter 
of  its  navy  and  its  commercial  marine  on  our  sea-coast  and  on  our 
lakes — when  the  means  of  communication  from  the  centre  to  every 
assailable  point  of  our  frontier,  and  from  supporting  distances  along 
that  frontier  to  each  other,  shall  have  been  established  and  rendered 
as  commodious  as  modern  skill  and  industry  can  make  them — then 
the  system  of  appropriation  for  the  common  defence  and  for  facili- 
tating commerce  among  the  States  will  stop,  and  Heaven  forbid  that 
it  should  stop  any  sooner.  When,  and  where,  we  may  ask  in  re- 
turn, is  the  business  of  legislation  for  this  vast  country  to  stop?  If 
the  indefinite  duration  of  the  exercise  of  any  power  forms  an  objec- 
tion to  its  being  exercised  at  all,  then  your  honorable  bodies  should 
adjourn,  and  leave  the  country  without  any  regulation. 

We  are  told  that  the  policy  of  embarking  the  General  Govern- 
ment in  appropriations  for  internal  improvements,  had  its  origin  but 
little  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  and  that  it  became  so  alarming  as 
to  require  the  strong  and  stern  interposition  of  President  Jackson  to 
arrest  its  progress.  General  Jackson  himself  states,  that  the  prac- 
tice of  appropriating  money  from  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States 
for  the  establishment  and  support  of  light-houses,  beacons,  buoys 
and  public  piers,  to  render  navigation  safe  and  easy,  "is  coeval  with 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  and  has  been  continued  without 
interruption  or  dispute." 

If  any  corroboration  of  his  testimony  be  required,  it  will  be  found  by 
referring  to  an  official  report  made  under  a  call  of  the  Senate,  by  the 
distinguished  head  of  the  Topographical  Engineers,  on  the  7th  of 
Jan.,  1847,  and  transmitted  to  the  Senate  by  the  present  Secretary 
of  War,  being  number  44  of  the  Executive  documents  of  the  sec- 
ond session  of  the  29th  Congress.  Annexed  to  this  report  is  a  re- 
capitulation of  the  appropriations  made  in  each  year  "  for  the  con- 
struction and  repair  of  roads,  and  the  improvement  of  harbors," 
reaching  back  to  the  administration  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  which  being 
condensed,  shows  those  made  during  the  different  administrations, 
as  follows  : 

Under  Mr.  Jefferson, $48,400 

"      Mr.  Madison, 250,800 

"      Mr.  Monroe, 707,621 

"      Mr.  J.  Q.  Adams, 2,310,475 


24 

"      Gen.  Jackson, 10,582,SS2 

"      Mr.  Van  Buren, 2,222,544 

"      Mr.  Tyler, 1,076,500 

This  topic  has,  however,  been  so  fully  and  ably  discussed  recent- 
ly, by  a  member  of  the  present  House  of  Representatives  from  Con- 
necticut, and  the  fallacy  of  the  statement  we  have  quoted,  so  tho- 
roughly and  triumphantly  exposed,  as  to  render  quite  unnecessary 
any  further  comment  from  us. 

But  to  provide  some  remedy  for  the  admitted  wants  of  the  country, 
a  suggestion  has  been  brought  out,  which,  if  not  original,  has  all  the 
freshness  of  novelty.  It  is,  that  there  is  no  occasion  for  th? 
exercise  of  this  power  by  Congress,  because  "  the  Constitu- 
tion itself  indicates  a  process  by  which  harbors  and  rivers  within 
the  States  may  be  improved — >a  process  not  susceptible  of  the  abu- 
ses necessarily  (supposed)  to  flow  from  the  assumption  of  the  pow- 
er to  impose  them  by  the  General  Government,  just  in  its  operation, 
and  actually  practised  upon  during  more  than  thirty  years  from  the 
organization  of  the  present  government."  And  we  are  told  that 
this  process  is  indicated  by  a  passage  in  the  last  clause  of  the  10th 
section  of  the  first  article  of  the  Constitution,  by  which  it  is  provi- 
ded that  "no  State  shall,  without  the  consent  of  Congress,  lay  any 
duty  of  tonnage,  keep  troops  or  ships  of  war  in  time  of  peace," 
&c.  And  the  laying  of  a  tonnage  duty  by  the  States  with  the  con- 
sent of  Congress,  is  recommended  as  a  safe  provision  to  accomplish 
all  the  desired  objects ;  and  among  its  safeguards  it  is  specified  that 
the  funds  raised  "are  to  be  in  every  instance  levied  upon  the  com- 
merce of  those  ports  which  are  to  profit  by  the  proposed  improvement." 
And  it  is  stated,  that  it  appears  in  Mr.  Madison's  report  of  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Convention,  "that  one  object  of  the  reservation 
was,  that  the  States  should  not  be  restrained  from  laying  duties  of 
tonnage  for  the  purpose  of  clearing  harbors." 

It  is  deemed  necessary,  to  a  full  understanding  of  the  clause,  that 
■what  was  actually  said  should  be  known.  The  report  referred  to  says  : 
"  Mr.  McHenry  and  Mr.  Carroll  moved  that  'no  State  shall  be  re- 
strained from  laying  duties  of  tonnage  for  the  purpose  of  clearing  har- 
bors and  erecting  light-houses.'  Colonel  Mason,  in  support  of  this, 
explained  and  urged  the  situation  of  the  Chesapeake,  which  peculiar- 
ly required  expenses  of  this  sort.  Mr.  Madison  observed  that  there 
were  other  objects  for  tonnage  duties,  as  the  support  of  seamen,  &c. 
He  was  more  and  more  convinced  that  the  regulation  of  commerce 


"D  ■ 


25 

was  in  its  nature  indivisible,  and  ought  to  be  wholly  under  one  au- 
thority."    (Madison  papers,  3d,  p.  1587.) 

It  appears,  then,  that  the  establishment  of  light  houses  was  as 
much  an  object  of  the  reservation  to  the  States  as  the  clearing  of  har- 
bors. If  then,  the  argument  derived  from  the  debates  proves  any 
thing,  it  proves  that  the  maintenance  of  light  houses  by  the  General 
Government  is  not  a  power  granted  by  the  Constitution,  and  that 
they  should  be  sustained  by  tonnage  duties  imposed  by  the  States. 
And  light  boats,  buoys  and  beacons,  must  stand  upon  the  same  foot- 
ing, 'lhe  practice  of  the  Government,  as  already  shown,  has  given 
a  very  different  interpretation.  The  Congress  has  assumed  these 
duties  without  State  legislation,  and  no  one  has  yet  been  so  hardy  or 
so  reckless  as  to  deny  its  power  and  its  duty  to  do  so. 

The  writers  of  the  essays  collected  under  the  title  of  "  The  Fede- 
ralist," no  where  speak  of  this  reserved  power  of  laying  a  tonnage 
duty,  and  the  quotation  from  No.  44  of  that  work,  which  has  been 
cited  as  applicable  to  this  subject,  has  no  reference  whatever  to  it, 
but  relates  wholly  to  the  reserved  power  of  laying  duties  on  imports 
and  exports. 

It  seems  to  your  memorialists  quite  evident  that  under  this  re- 
servation to  the  States  of  the  right  to  lay  a  "  duty  on  tonnage,"  it 
must  be  confined  to  the  vessels  of  the  State  imposing  it,  and  to  fo- 
reign vessels,  for  by  the  fifth  clause  of  the  ninth  section  of  the  first 
article  of  the  Constitution,  it  is  provided  as  follows  :  "  No  preference 
shall  be  given  by  any  regulation  of  commerce  or  revenue  to  the 
ports  of  one  State  over  those  of  another  ;  nor  shall  vessels  bound  to 
or  from  one  State,  be  obliged  to  enter,  clear,  or  pay  duties  in  another." 
We  are  unable  to  comprehend  how,  under  this  prohibition,  vessels 
navigating  from  one  State  to  another,  can,  by  any  act  of  a  State, 
with  or  without  the  consent  of  Congress,  be  obliged  to  pay  a  tonnage 
duty  in  such  other  State.  The  provision  operates  to  make  common 
highways  of  all  the  navigable  waters  of  the  States,  to  vessels  bound 
to  or  from  one  State,  and  by  its  terms,  precludes  what  might  other- 
wise be  claimed,  a  reasonable  toll  or  compensation  for  making  or 
keeping  such  highways  in  proper  condition  for  use. 

The  history  of  the  times  and  of  the  debates  in  the  Convention 
furnishes  abundant  evidence,  that  among  the  evils  of  the  Confedera- 
tion no  one  was  deemed  so  intolerable  and  so  destructive  of  the  har- 
mony and  peace  of  the  States  or  so  ruinous  to  their  commerce,  as 
the  local  duties  imposed  by  several  States  upon  cargoes  and  tonnage; 
and  it  seems  to  have  been  a  primary  object,  utterly  and  forever  to 

4 


26 

abolish  and  prohibit  them.  And  to  this  feeling  do  we  attribute  the 
clause  in  question. 

And  we  find  that  the  qualification  we  have  intimated,  has  been 
recognised  in  several  of  the  acts  of  the  States  imposing  tonnage  du- 
ties, which  have  received  the  sanction  of  Congress  ;  and  which  have 
been  specially  communicated  to  your  honorable  Houses.  Thus,  the 
act  of  May  6,  1796,  gives  the  consent  of  Congress  to  an  act  of  Mary- 
land, "  so  far  as  to  enable  the  State  aforesaid  to  collect  one  cent  per 
ton  upon  all  vessels  coming  into  the  district  of  Baltimore  from  a 
foreign  voyage."  And  the  act  of  February  28,  1806,  gives  the 
like  consent  that  the  State  of  Pennsylvania  "  may  collect  a  duty  of 
four  cents  per  ton  upon  all  vessels  clearing  out  of  Philadelphia  for 
any  foreign  port  or  place."  By  the  act  of  March  28,  1806,  consent 
is  given  to  an  act  of  South  Carolina,  authorising  '*  the  city  of 
Charleston  to  levy  a  duty  not  exceeding  six  cents  per  ton  upon  ves- 
sels entering  the  port  of  Charleston  from  any  foreign  port  or  place 
whatever."  And  by  the  act  of  April  29,  1816,  the  like  consent  is 
given  to  an  act  of  the  same  State,  for  collecting  a  duty  often  cents 
per  ton  upon  vessels  from  a  foreign  port. 

Having  no  purpose  to  mislead,  we  state  also,  that  we  find  several 
of  the  acts  of  Congress  referred  to,  assenting  to  laws  of  the  States 
levying  tonnage  duties  on  ships  and  vessels,  in  some  cases  generally 
and  without  discrimination,  and  in  others,  expressly  including  coast- 
ing vessels.  We  find  but  eleven  distinct  ports  or  rivers  in  the  whole 
United  States,  which  have  been  the  subject  of  these  acts.  In  re- 
spect to  three  of  them,  as  above  stated,  the  duty  is  confined  to  for- 
eign vessels.  In  some  of  the  others,  the  improvements  are  entirely 
local,  and  of  a  character  which  does  not  come  within  the  facilities 
for  "  commerce  among  the  States,"  as  defined  by  the  Chicago  Con- 
vention. Of  the  acts  referred  to,  three  of  them  assenting  to  laws 
of  Alabama,  do  not  impose  tonnage  duties  upon  vessels,  but  tolls 
upon  specific  articles  for  passing  artificial  structures — of  most  ques- 
tionable validity.  Another,  consenting  to  an  act  of  North  Carolina, 
to  provide  funds  for  a  hospital,  levies  a  tax  upon  seamen  not  upon 
vessels.  Another  sanctions  an  act  of  Georgia,  by  which  the  harbor- 
master and  health  officer  of  Savannah  and  St.  Mary,  are  authorised 
to  collect  tonnage  duties  in  full  of  their  demands  for  official  duties  ! 
A  rigid  examination  of  others  of  these  acts  would  show  that  they 
are  entitled  to  very  little  weight,  as  constructive  of  the  Constitution. 
States  are  employed  as  agencies  in  establishing  marine  hospitals, 
and  officers  of  the  United  States  are  made  subject  to  local  authori- 


27 

ties,  and  other  provisions  are  sanctioned,  which  at  this  day  would 
find  no  support  from  any  quarter. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  weight  of  these  precedents,  in  the  esti- 
mation of  those  who  regard  the  continuous  acts  of  Congress,  acqui- 
esced in  by  the  people,  as  just  expositions  of  constitutional  power — 
yet,  if  they  are  urged  as  being  in  conflict  with  the  authority  of  Con- 
gress which  we  claim,  we  submit  that  the  number,  variety  and  ex- 
tent of  the  acts  which  have  asserted  the  power  of  the  Federal  Go- 
vernment to  make  appropriations  for  internal  improvements,  within 
the  limits  and  for  the  purposes  indicated  by  our  constituents,  greatly 
outweigh  in  point  of  authority  the  laws  assenting  to  State  duties  on 
tonnage.  But  we  confess  our  inability  to  appreciate  the  consistency 
of  those  who  quote  these  acts  as  establishing  the  sense  otthe  found- 
ers of  our  republic,  and  at  the  same  time  deny  to  other  and  more 
numerous  acts  of  the  same  persons,  the  least  respect  as  constitutional 
expositions. 

But,  in  truth,  these  acts  are  not  in  conflict — they  do  not  assert 
any  antagonist  principles.  With  the  exceptions  hereafter  mention- 
ed, a  State  may  be  authorised  by  Congress  to  levy  duties  of  tonnage 
for  local  improvements,  and  for  creating  facilities  for  foreign  com- 
merce, and  for  commerce  among  the  States,  and  yet  Congress  may 
make  appropriations  for  the  same  objects.  And  such  in  fact  has 
been  the  practice  of  the  government.  In  aid  of  the  State  duties  to 
improve  the  navigation  of  the  Delaware  bay,  Congress  has  appro- 
priated more  than  two  millions  of  dollars.  For  improving  the  har- 
bor of  Baltimore,  for  which  State  tonnage  duties  have  been  levied, 
there  have  been  appropriations  by  Congress  to  the  amonnt  of  more 
than  fifty  thousand  dollars.  And  in  like  manner,  more  than  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars  have  been  appropriated  for  improving  the 
navigation  of  the  Savannah  river,  notwithstanding  the  duties  on  ton- 
nage levied  by  the  State  of  Georgia,  with  the  assent  of  Congress  for 
that  purpose.  Conceding,  for  the  purpose  of  further  consideration, 
that  both  powers  are  possessed  by  Congress,  is  it  not  evidently  one 
of  those  cases  of  sound  judgment  and  discretion,  which  our  Consti- 
tution intended  to  leave  to  the  decision  of  those  more  immediately 
and  practically  acquainted  with  all  the  circumstances — the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people,  to  adopt  the  mode  which  should  be  most 
effectual  1 

And  here  we  would  remark  what  significant  proof  do  these  appro- 
priations by  the  Federal  Government  furnish  of  the  utter  and  total 
inadequacy,  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances,  as  in  the  cases 


28 

of  Baltimore  and  Savannah,  of  these  State  tonnage  duties,  to  accom- 
plish the  objects  intended. 

But,  it  seems  to  have  been  strangely  forgotten,  that  an  insuperable 
objection  exists  to  the  exercise  of  this  power  by  the  States,  of  levying 
tonnage  duties  upon  vessels  navigating  the  navigable  waters  leading 
into  the  Mississpipi  and  the  St.  Lawrence  rivers.  It  arises  trom  the 
terms  of  the  fourth  article  of  "the  articles  of  compact  between  the  ori- 
ginal States  and  the  people  and  states  "  in  the  territory  which  in  1787 
constituted  the  territory  of  the  United  States  northwest  of  the  river 
Ohio.  Those  articles  are,  perhaps,  the  most  sacred  among  the  "en- 
gagements" entered  intobefore  the  adoption  otthe  Constitution,  whose 
validity  and  perpetual  obligation  are  asserted  and  secured  by  the  sixth 
article  of  that  instrument.  The  fourth  article  of  that  compact  provides 
thus  :  "  The  navigable  waters  leading  into  the  Mississipi  and  St. 
Lawrence,  and  the  carrying  places  between  the  same,  shall  be  com- 
mon highways,  and  forever  free,  as  well  to  the  inhabitants  of  the 
said  territory,  as  to  the  citizens  of  the  Uuited  States,  and  those  of 
any  other  States  that  may  be  admitted  into  the  confederacy,  without 
any  tax,  impost  or  duty  therefor."  This  last  word  in  the  passage 
quoted  "  therefor,"  is  exceedingly  emphatic  and  comprehensive. 
These  waters  are  declared  "  common  highways," — the  characteristic 
quality  of  which  is,  that  they  may  be  used  without  any  charge  ;  but 
as  if  this  were  not  sufficient  to  preclude  all  cavil,  it  is  further  decla- 
red that  there  shall  be  no  "  tax,  impost  or  duty  therefor" — for  using 
them  as  common  highways.  By  the  comprehensive  term  "  naviga- 
ble waters,"  are  included  not  only  the  lakes  leading  into  the  St.  Law- 
rence, but  the  rivers  flowing  into  them,  as  well  as  the  great  rivers 
like  the  Ohio,  leading  into  the  Mississippi  and  the  navigable  waters 
flowing  into  those  rivers.  These  are  "  forever  free  "  from  any  tax 
or  duty,  for  using  them.  It  is,  therefore,  manifestly  impossible  for 
any  States,  with  or  without  the  consent  of  Congress,  to  levy  any 
"  duty  of  tonnage  "  upon  vessels  navigating  those  waters  and  streams, 
for  using  them  as  common  highways.  Thus,  it  will  be  seen,  that 
some  of  the  most  essential  facilities  to  navigation,  such  as  clearing 
the  shoals  or  flats  in  Lake  St.  Clair,  and  removing  obstructions  in 
rivers  leading  into  the  St.  Lawrence  or  the  Mississippi,  can  never  be 
accomplished  by  the  levying  of  tonnage  duties  upon  vessels  navigat- 
ing them. 

In  the  view  of  the  undersigned,  the  clause  in  the  compact  of  1787 
which  has  been  quoted,  strikingly  exhibits  the  common  feeling  and 


29 

understanding  of  our  forefathers  in  relation  to  commercial  intercourse 
between  the  states. 

A  still  more  important  inference  may  be  drawn  from  this  provis- 
ion in  the  compact.  The  ordinance  in  which  it  is  contained,  pro- 
vides for  the  erection  of  many  states  out  of  the  territory  to  which  it 
relates.  The  framers  of  that  ordinance  had  witnessed  the  annoy- 
ances and  collisions  to  which  trade  and  navigation  in  the  con- 
federated states  had  been  subjected  by  the  local  impositions  of  the 
different  states  ;  they  saw  in  prospect  what  our  eyes  behold — a  chain 
of  states  bounded  or  intersected  by  the  great  lakes,  the  Mississippi 
and  the  rivers  flowing  into  them  and  the  St.  Lawrence,  having  these 
common  watercourses  to  conduct  them  to  a  market.  And  they  were 
admonished  by  the  examples  of  the  old  world,  that  interest,  ambition 
and  rivalry  would  stimulate  those  states  to  efforts  to  enrich  them- 
selves, if  not  to  depress  their  neighbors,  by  endless  exactions  upon 
the  vessels  that  should  pass  through  their  respective  territories. 
And  the  wonderful  forecast  which  distinguishes  that  whole  instru- 
ment, in  nothing  exhibited  itself  so  pre-eminently,  as  by  this 
single  provision  which  closed  forever  this  fountain  of  bitterness  and 
strife. 

Insuperable  obstacles  of  a  similar  character,  to  any  imposition  of 
tonnage  duties  upon  vessels  navigating  the  Mississippi,  are  present- 
ed by  the  compacts  made  by  the  federal  government  with  several 
states  bordering  on  that  river,  upon  their  admission  into  the  Union. 
Thus  by  the  act  for  the  admission  of  the  state  of  Louisiana,  April 
8,  1812,  it  is  provided  as  a  condition  of  its  admission  that  "  the 
river  Mississippi  and  the  navigable  rivers  and  waters  leading  into 
the  same,  and  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  shall  be  common  highways, 
and  forever  free  as  well  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  said  state  as  to  in- 
habitants of  other  states,  without  any  tax,  duty,  impost  or  toll  there- 
for, imposed  by  the  said  State  ;"  a  similar  provision  in  all  respects 
is  inserted  in  the  act  for  the  formation  of  the  state  of  Mississippi, 
March  1,  1817;  a  condition  of  the  same  kind  is  incorporated  in  the 
act  authorising  a  state  government  for  Missouri,  March  6,  1820. 
The  act  for  the  admission  of  Arkansas,  (June  15,  1836,)  imposes 
the  same  conditions  and  restrictions  in  relation  to  the  Mississippi  and 
its  tributaries.  The  act  of  March  3,  1845,  for  the  admission  of 
Iowa,  has  the  same  provision  declaring  the  Mississippi  and  the  navi- 
gable waters  leading  into  the  same,  forever  free  to  all  citizens  of 
the  United  States  without  any  tax,  duty,  impost  or  toll  therefor  im- 
posed by  the  said  state.     The  act  authorising  the  people  of  Wiscon- 


30 

sin  to  form  a  state  government,  August  6,  1846,  provides  that  the 
river  Mississippi  and  all  other  rivers  and  waters  bordering  on  Wis- 
consin, "  and  the  navigable  waters  leading  into  the  same,  shall  be 
common  highways  and  for  ever  free,  as  well  to  the  inhabitants  of  the 
said  state,  as  to  all  other  citizens  of  the  United  States,  without  any 
tax,  duty,  impost  or  toll  therefor."  And  thus  we  see  the  noble 
Mississippi,  from  its  mouth  to  its  extremest  source,  by  compact  after 
compact,  and  at  every  step  and  stage  of  the  organization  of  the 
vast  communities  on  its  borders,  guarded  and  protected  from  the 
impositions  now  sought  to  be  fastened  upon  it. 

What  then  becomes  of  the  proposed  expedient  of  State  tonnage 
duties,  as  a  mode  of  furnishing  means  for  improving  the  rivers  and 
harbors  of  our  wide-spread  country  1  Is  it  not  utterly  inadequate, 
baseless  and  fallacious?  We  see  that  our  navigable  waters  in  the 
vast  valley  of  the  Mississippi  and  in  the  great  basin  of  the  Lakes, 
by  the  most  solemn  compacts,  are  forever  exonerated  from  the  im- 
position of  any  such  burthen,  and  this  grand  division  of  our  national 
improvements,  embracing  the  largest  geographical  portion  of  our  ter- 
ritory,— a  portion  already  all  but  predominant  in  political  and  com- 
mercial importance, — can  be  accomplished  only  by  the  authority 
and  at  the  expense  of  the  general  government.  But  would  it  be 
either  just  or  expedient,  that  the  navigation  of  these  great  interior 
waters,  thus  shielded  from  the  powrer  of  the  States,  should  be  im- 
proved and  maintained  at  the  common  expensef  while  the  residue  of 
our  rivers  and  harbors  on  the  Atlantic  coast  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
similarly  situated  in  all  respects  excepting  as  to  the  prohibition 
against  duties,  should  receive  no  aid  from  the  same  source.  Equal 
and  exact  justice  requires  that  the  common  funds  should  be  equally 
and  fairly  distributed  for  the  common  purposes  in  all  parts  of  the 
Union.  The  undersigned  would  utterly  misrepresent  the  feelings 
and  sentiments  of  those  who  appointed  them,  were  they  to  claim 
for  the  inhabitants  of  any  of  the  eighteen  States  represented  in  the 
Chicago  Convention,  any  peculiar  or  local  protection  or  benefit  not 
conceded  to  all  their  fellow-citizens. 

And  here  we  might  close  our  objections  to  the  proposed  expedient 
of  state  tonnsge  duties,  having  shown  that  in  respect  to  the  greatest 
portion  of  our  navigable  waters,  its  adoption  is  legally  impossible, 
and  that  wTith  regard  to  the  others,  it  would  be  partial,  inequitable 
and  unjust.  But  there  are  other  points  of  view  in  wThich  this  pro- 
posed expedient  of  tonnage  duties  may  be  examined,  of  such  prac- 
tical importance,  and  of  such  disastrous  consequences  to  the  whole 


31 

country,  that  we  deem  it  a  duty  to  present  them,  in  the  hope  that 
it  may  never  again  meet  the  favor  of  any  statesman. 

The  principle  itself  of  local  duties  for  any  such  purpose,  is  un- 
sound and  delusive.  Higher  duties,  of  any  kind,  at  one  port  than 
at  others,  must  necessarily  drive  irom  it  every  ship  thstis  not  com- 
pelled by  circumstances,  or  induced  by  some  preponderating  benefit 
to  enter  it.  And  consequently,  if  a  harbor  is  avoided  on  account  of 
the  natural  obstructions  to  its  entrance,  it  will  be  still  more  avoided 
if  artificial  difficulties  and  impositions  are  superadded,  so  that  the 
resources  of  such  a  port  would  be  diminished  instead  of  being  in- 
creased, and  the  policy  would  defeat  itself.  It  is  believed  that  some 
ports  of  the  United  States  have  already  furnished  instances  of  such 
results. 

The  system  is  utterly  inapplicable  for  the  removal  of  obstructions 
in  navigable  waters  which  are  common  to  several  states,  and  are 
navigated  by  vessels  which  do  not  enter  any  harbor  adjacent  to  such 
obstructions.  Take  as  an  instance,  the  shoals  or  flats  in  Lake  St. 
Clair,  which  impede  the  navigation  of  all  vessels  passing  from  Lake 
Michigan  into  Lake  Erie,  or  from  the  latter  into  the  former.  These 
vessels  are  under  no  necessity  to  enter  any  port  within  hundreds  of 
miles  of  these  obstructions.  Where  shall  the  tonnage  duty  be  col- 
lected 1  At  the  port  of  departure,  or  at  that  of  arrival  1  In  this 
case  how  many  states  will  be  the  collectors  of  the  duty  1  And  un- 
der whose  direction  is  the  amount  to  be  concentrated  and  expended  1 
And  what  are  the  responsibilities  for  its  application  by  the  collecting 
states  1  But  supposing  a  collector's  office  established  on  the  shore 
near  the  obstructions,  reinforced  by  a  battery  sufficient  to  compel 
the  vessels  to  come  to  and  pay  their  duties,  are  these  to  be  collected 
by  the  agents  of  the  state  of  Michigan,  and  to  be  expended  by  them 
or  other  agents  under  the  regulations  of  the  state  1  How  long,  is 
it  probable  such  a  system  of  exactions  would  be  submitted  to  by  the 
states  of  Illinois,  Wisconsin,  Ohio,  Pennsylvania  and  New-York, 
whose  citizens  and  vessels  would  be  the  subjects  of  this  operation  1 

The  same  question  may  be  put  in  relation  to  duties  levied  by  any 
State  bordering  on  the  Mississippi,  to  remove  the  snags  and  other 
obstructions  in  that  river,  opposite  their  respective  territories.  The 
several  States  of  Wisconsin,  Iowa,  Illinois,  Missouri,  Kentucky,  Ten- 
nessee, Arkansas,  Mississippi  and  Louisiana,  have  jurisdiction  over 
portions  of  that  river,  and  it  is  presumed  that  in  each  of  those  portions 
there  are  obstructions  of  some  kind  requiring  removal.  Are  tonnage 
duties  for  these  purposes  to  be  levied  by  each  of  those  States?     As 


32 

their  jurisdictions  extend  to  the  thread  of  the  river,  would  there  not 
be  some  difficulty  in  adjusting  the  work  to  be  performed,  among  the 
States  opposite  to  the  obstructions  to  be  removed'?  For  fear  of 
overcharging  the  picture,  we  will  say  nothing  of  the  interminable 
discussions  likely  to  arise  respecting  the  faithful  and  judicious  ap- 
plication, by  the  agents  of  the  individual  States,  of  the  duties  col- 
lected, to  the  destined  purpose.  If  the  wit  of  man  were  taxed  to 
devise  a  scheme  utterly  destructive  of  all  trade,  commerce  and  na- 
vigation upon  these  waters,  a  better  one  for  the  purpose  than  this, 
of  artificially  obstructing  them  by  hosts  of  collectors  of  tonnage 
duties  imposed  by  local  legislation,  could  not  be  framed. 

Allow  us  to  refresh  the  memories  of  those  who  have  forgotten  the 
consequences  of  such  a  system,  which  prevailed  under  the  articles 
of  confederation  and  before  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  by  a 
few  quotations  from  Mr.  Madison's  introduction  to  the  debates  of 
the  Convention.  "  The  same  want  of  a  general  power  over  com- 
merce, (he  observes,)  led  to  an  exercise  of  the  power  separately  by 
the  States,  which  not  only  proved  abortive,  but  engendered  rival, 
conflicting  and  angry  regulations.  Besides  the  vain  attempts  to 
supply  their  respective  treasuries  by  imposts,  which  turned  their  com- 
merce into  the  neighboring  ports,  *  *  "*  the  States  having  ports 
for  foreign  commerce,  taxed  and  irritated  the  adjoining  States  tra- 
ding through  them."  "  In  sundry  instances,  the  navigation  laws 
treated  the  citizens  of  other  States  as  aliens."  "New  Jersey, 
placed  between  Philadelphia  and  New-York,  was  likened  to  a  cask 
tapped  at  both  ends ;  and  North  Carolina,  between  Virginia  and 
South  Carolina,  to  a  patient  bleeding  at  both  arms.5' 

What  could  be  more  disastrous,  or  more  lamentable,  than  a  re- 
turn to  these  interfering,  unneighborly  and  intolerable  exactiens  of 
the  States'?  The  Union  itself  was  formed,  and  the  Constitution 
was  adopted,  for  the  express  purpose  of  closing  up  forever  these 
sources  of  animosity  and  discord,  and  these  injurious  impediments 
to  intercourse  between  different  parts  of  our  country,  as  the  cotem- 
poraneovs  history  abundantly  shows. 

Nor  are  we  without  the  experience  of  other  countries  upon  this 
same  subject  of  local  duties.  In  the  22d  number  of  the  "  Federal- 
ist," an  account  of  that  system  was  given,  for  the  purpose  of  exci- 
ting the  attention  of  the  American  people  to  its  dangers  and  its 
evils,  and  thus  disposing  them  to  adopt  the  new  Constitution,  then 
under  discussion.     It  is  as  follows  :  "  The  commerce  of  the  German 


33 

Empire  is  in  continual  trammels,  from  the  multiplicity  of  the  duties 
which  the  several  princes  and  States  exact  upon  the  merchandise 
passing  through  their  territories,  by  means  of  which  the  fine  streams 
and  navigable  rivers  with  which  Germany  is  so  happily  watered,  are 
rendered  almost  useless."  The  absurdity  of  the  system  has  since  in- 
duced several  German  States  to  attempt  a  remedy  ;  and  they  have  es- 
tablished a  Zoll  Verein  or  commercial  union,  now  consisting  of  eigh- 
teen States,  who,  by  a  delegated  council,  impose  one  set  of  duties  upon 
the  intercourse  and  trade  of  the  combined  States,  by  land,  with  other 
countries,  which  are  collected  on  the  frontiers  and  distributed  among 
these  States,  in  a  prescribed  proportion.  Still  suffering,  however, 
under  the  numerous  and  vexatious  duties  which  impede  the  com- 
merce carried  on  upon  their  rivers,  they  have  been  striving  for  years 
to  apply  the  American  principle  of  union  to  their  navigable 
waters  also,  and  nationalise  them  by  one  tariff  of  duties,  for  the  be- 
nefit of  the  whole.  And  the  opportunity  which  has  recently  been 
presented  of  accomplishing  an  object  of  such  deep  interest  and 
warm  desire  among  the  intelligent  men  of  the  country,  will  unques- 
tionably be  improved  to  the  utmost.  What  a  singular,  and  may  we 
not  say  humiliating  spectacle,  would  our  Republic  present  to  the 
world,  if  we  were  now  to  retrograde  to  a  system  of  local  duties 
similar  to  those  established  in  barbarous  ages,  by  petty  despots,  and 
maintained  by  feudal  violence  and  oppression  1 

It  is  no  answer  to  say,  that  these  evils  are  obviated  by  the  control 
given  to  Congres,  by  which  injustice  would  be  prevented.  The 
system  itself  contemplates  multitudinous  duties  of  tonnage,  by  all 
the  States  having  navigable  waters  requiring  improvement  ;  a  posi- 
tive and  intolerable  burden,  by  whatever  authority  imposed  or  sanc- 
tioned. Besides,  the  efforts  to  obtain  the  sanction  of  Congress  to 
the  various  projects  of  the  States,  wouM  at  once  introduce  a  new 
progeny  of  incalculable  evils.  The  halls  of  legislation  would  become 
the  theatres  of  conflict,  by  States  contending  for  their  peculiar  inte- 
rests ;  and  the  system  of  combinations,  so  much  dreaded  in  reference 
to  appropriations  by  Congress,  would  be  the  only  system  by  which 
the  tonnage  duties  of  States  would  be  established.  In  order  to 
prevent  the  inequalities  which  would  induce  preferences  between 
the  ports  of  the  large  States  holding  the  keys  of  communication  to 
the  interior,  the  duties  at  such  ports  must  be  regulated  by  those 
States  with  a  view  to  equality,  and  this  would  be  the  first  step  to 

5 


34 

an  inevitable  organised  combination  between  them,  by  which  they 
would  tax  for  their  own  benefit  the  products  and  the  industry  of 
their  neighbors,  under  the  pretext  of  improving  navigation,  by  ex- 
penditures over  which  those  neighbors,  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
case,  could  have  no  control.  In  this  conflict,  what  are  the  proba- 
bilities of  the  success  of  any  efforts  that  might  be  made  by  the 
small  and  interior  States,  to  resist  oppression  1  It  is  unnecessary 
to  follow  out  the  consequences  of  such  a  system.  The  worst  pre- 
dictions of  Patrick  Henry  and  his  associate  opponents  of  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Constitution,  would  be  more  than  realised.  In  the  view  of 
these  disastrous  results,  it  is  difficult  to  give  too  broad  a  construction 
to  that  provision  of  the  Constitution  already  quoted,  which  declares, 
that  vessels  bound  from  or  to  one  State,  shall  never  be  compelled 
to  pay  duties  in  another. 

An  idea  seems  to  be  entertained  that  these  tonnage  duties  would 
be  paid  only  by  the  owners  of  the  shipping  on  which  they  were 
levied.  Nothing  can  be  more  fallacious  ;  every  cent  of  duty  or  toll 
levied  upon  the  means  of  transportation,  enhances  the  price  of 
the  produce  transported,  and  is  paid  by  its  owners  or  consumers. 
If  the  competition  in  the  particular  article  is  such  that  its  price  can 
not  exceed  a  certain  maximum,  then  every  new  imposition  is  a  tax 
upon  the  producer,  who  cannot  be  repaid  for  the  additional  charge ; 
but  if  the  state  of  the  market  allows  the  producer  to  fix  his  own 
price,  then  the  consumer  pays  every  item  of  the  cost  of  bringing 
the  article  to  his  hands.  So  that  in  the  present  state  of  our  trade, 
by  the  system  of  local  tonnage  duties,  the  agricultural  and  mechani- 
cal interests  of  the  interior,  forming,  as  they  do,  the  great  mass  of 
producers  and  consumers,  would  pay  the  duties  levied  for  the  im- 
provement of  any  navigable  waters  or  of  any  harbors.  And  thus, 
it  will  be  seen,  how  unsound  is  the  theory  which  has  been  ad- 
vanced, that  these  local  tonnage  duties  would  be  collected  M  from 
the  commerce  of  the  ports  which  are  to  profit  by  the  improvements." 
Although  in  the  first  instance  paid  by  that  commerce,  yet,  as  has 
been  shown,  they  are  ultimately  taken  out  of  the  pockets  of  the 
people  at  large.  And  as  the  appropriations  for  such  improve- 
ments, made  by  Congress,  must  come  from  the  same  source,  the 
question  at  last  comes  to  this  point, — shall  the  means  for  making 
them  be  obtained  under  the  local  legislation  of  the  States,  sanc- 
tioned by  Congress,  and  expended  by  those  States  through  their  own 
agents  and  without  responsibility  to  the  whole;  or  shall  they  be  ob- 


35 

tained  by  the  direct  consent  of  the  representatives  of  all  who  are  to 
pay  them,  be  applied  in  the  mode  best  calculated  to  promote  the 
common  and  general  interests  of  the  whole,  instead  of  the  local  in- 
terests of  one  or  a  few,  and  be  expended  and  controlled  under  the  au- 
thority of  the  government  that  represents  all  the  States,  with  the  as- 
sistance of  the  skill,  experience  and  independence  of  agents  which 
that  government  only  can  supply  1 

It  is  emphatically  remarked  in  No.  40  of  the  Federalist,  that  "the 
rights  to  the  fisheries,  to  the  navigation  of  the  lakes  and  to  that  of 
the  Msssissippi,  are  rights  of  the  Union,"  as  contradistinguished 
from  the  rights  of  particular  States.  They  are  indeed  national  rights, 
they  belong  to  the  whole  Union,  to  each  and  every  State,  and  to 
every  citizen.  This  right,  in  relation  to  the  lakes  and  the  Missis- 
sippi, has  been  consecrated  by  the  compacts  and  acts  to  which  we 
have  already  referred  ; — national  in  its  very  nature,  it  would  be  a 
gross  dereliction  of  duty  in  the  Federal  Government,  to  subject  it 
in  any  form,  immediately  or  remotely,  to  the  action  of  any  State. 

It  is  a  grievous  mistake  to  suppose  that  this  glorious  Union  was 
formed  only  to  produce  a  unity  of  political  interests.  Almost  every 
page  of  the  Debates  in  the  Convention  and  the  writings  of  those 
wTho  defended  the  Constitution,  proclaims  that  a  unity  of  commercial 
interests  was  equally  the  object  of  its  formation.  Indeed,  the  dangers 
to  be  apprehended  from  commercial  conflicts,  were  far  greater  than 
those  which  could  arise  from  any  other  source  ;  and  the  political 
organization  was  in  itself  chiefly  desirable,  because  it  combined, 
regulated  and  controlled  the  conflicting  commercial  interests  of  the 
different  States. 

No  man  can  cast  his  eye  over  the  map  of  the  United  States,  with- 
out being  struck  by  the  wonderful  physical  adaptation  of  its  surface 
to  the  Union  under  one  government  of  the  people  inhabiting  it;  a 
union  that  should  rest  not  so  much  upon  constitutions  and  compacts 
as  upon  social  and  commercial  interests  and  feelings,  as  expansive 
as  the  wants  and  affections  of  man,  and  as  durable  as  time.  Reach- 
ing from  ocean  to  ocean,  extending  through  the  temperate  into  the 
torrid  zone,  it  presents  such  a  variety  of  climate  and  soil,  such  ad- 
mirable proportions  of  land  and  water,  as  afford  an  infinite  diver- 
sity of  employment  for  labor  and  enterprise,  and  must  forever  pre- 
vent their  undue  absorption  by  any  one  or  by  a  few  objects  of 
culture,  while  they  insure  the  production  of  the  various  elements 
of  subsistence,  clothing,  and  even  ot  luxurious  indulgence,  without 


36 

resort  to  any  other  country.  And  no  country  on  the  face  of  the 
globe  presents  greater  capacities  for  the  interchange  of  these  produc- 
tions. Not  to  dwell  on  the  widespread  expanse  fed  and  watered  by 
the  Mississippi  and  its  navigable  confluents,  where  can  be  found  a 
commercial  parallel  for  its  own  gigantic  course,  reaching  from  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  2300  miles  to  the  northwest,  where  we  behold 
one  of  its  branches  within  thirty  miles  of  the  river  Iroquois, 
which  empties  into  Lake  Superior ;  passing  down  the  most  extra- 
ordinary chain  of  lakes  in  the  known  world,  1500  miles  to  the  St. 
Lawrence,  and  through  that  noble  river  1000  miles  we  reach  the 
ocean,  through  a  circuit  of  5000  miles.  These  great  conduits 
— the  Mississippi  and  the  St.  Lawrence — are  supplied  by  innume- 
rable streams  intersecting  the  whole  country  in  every  direction, 
which  may  be  connected  at  various  points  with  each  other,  or  with 
other  navigable  waters  leading  to  the  Atlantic,  forming  new  circuits 
and  channels,  and  affording  water  communication  to  every  portion 
of  the  Union,  capable  of  bearing  freights  more  conducive  to  the 
prosperity  of  our  people  than  rivers  of  gold.  Immense  as  this  view 
is,  it  is  but  a  foretaste  of  what  may  be  anticipated,  when  the  bound- 
less regions  now  opening  to  our  view  in  the  West  and  the  South 
shall  be  thronged  with  the  myriads  destined  to  occupy  them. 

As  the  true  and  sure  foundation  of  our  government,  is  in  the  in- 
terests and  affections  of  the  people,  what  more  noble  and  holy  duty 
remains  to  the  statesman,  than  that  of  completing  and  perfecting 
what  nature  has  begun,  and  giving  to  our  navigable  waters  their  full 
political  power  in  binding  together  one  brotherhood  of  freemen?  By 
intercourse  the  most  cheap  and  unrestrained,  and  by  that  alone,  can 
the  intelligence  and  sentiment  of  the  country  be  brought  into  con- 
tact— interests  and  affections  commingled — mountains  of  prejudice 
removed,  and  one  genial  spirit  of  common  sympathy  be  diffused 
throughout  the  land. 

And  shall  this  vast  movement  of  commerce  and  intercourse  be 
checked  and  obstructed  by  shoals,  bars,  snags  and  driftwood,  that  are 
mere  pigmy  obstacles,  when  compared  with  the  resources  of  the  United 
States,  or  with  the  immense  amount  of  trade  which  they  clog  and  im- 
pede 1 

The  whole  amount  of  the  appropriations  hitherto  made  by  Con- 
gress, during  nearly  sixty  years,  for  works  calculated  to  facilitate 
internal  trade,  is  less  than  eighteen  millions  of  dollars — but  little 
more  than  half  of  your  annual  revenue,  and  probably  not  equal  to 
three  months  expenditures  in  waging  a  foreign  war !     And  is  this 


37 

the  fulfilment  of  the  mission  of  civilization,  liberty,  peace,  and  pros- 
perity to  all,  which  our  Fathers  undertook  under  the  smiles  of  hea- 
ven 1  Was  our  government  made  only  to  furnish  place,  office  and 
honors  to  a  few,  and  to  afford  subjects  for  political  metaphysics  ? 
or  was  it  created  for  the  mighty  mass  of  minds  and  souls  that  up- 
hold it — to  afford  them  protection  not  only  in  the  enjoyment  of  po- 
litical rights,  but  in  the  enjoyment  and  improvement  of  the  bounties 
of  Nature  %  Every  obstruction  in  a  navigable  river,  every  impedi- 
ment to  the  entrance  of  an  harbor,  enhances  the  cost  of  transporta- 
tion, and  to  that  extent  becomes  a  burden  upon  the  products  of  labor, 
and  diminishes  their  value  ;  and  thus  causes  a  dead  loss  to  the  whole 
community.  And  while  the  nation  suffers  by  this  diminution  of  its 
capital,  the  loss  falls  most  heavily  on  those  very  classes  who  com- 
pose three-fourths  of  our  population,  whose  industry  and  enterprise 
constitute  our  wealth  in  peace  and  our  defence  in  war. 

In  no  one  subject,  therefore,  are  the  masses  more  deeply  interest- 
ed than  that  which  relates  to  their  safe  and  easy  intercourse  ;  and 
none  embraces  more  persons  or  greater  interests.  It  is  the  most 
essential  element  in  all  the  calculations  of  business  and  in  all  the 
arrangments  of  life.  Would  it  not  be  most  extraordinary,  if  it  were 
true,  that  such  a  subject  should  be  wholly  unprovided  for  in  the  or- 
ganization of  our  governments  ;  and  still  more,  that  those  govern- 
ments should  be  absolutely  interdicted  from  providing  in  any  way 
for  this  first  want  of  civilized  man  ?  And  yet,  such  is  the  inevitable 
result,  if  the  theories  which  we  have  combatted  are  sound.  It  is 
certain,  that  by  the  operation  of  the  Constitution,  and  of  compacts 
which  cannot  be  infringed,  all  jurisdiction  over  foreign  commerce, 
and  also  over  commerce  among  the  States,  so  far  as  the  principal 
navigable  waters  are  concerned,  is  denied  to  the  States  severally  or 
to  two  or  more  of  them  united  by  an  alliance  for  that  purpose.  The 
means  and  funds  arising  from  commerce,  and  rightfully  applicable 
to  its  protection  and  assistance,  have  been  surrendered  by  the  States 
to  the  Federal  Government,  and  they  have  neither  the  power 
nor  the  means  to  meet  the  exigency.  And  yet,  it  is  contended,  that 
the  Federal  Government  is  stripped  of  all  authority  to  supply  the 
funds  thus  surrendered,  even  for  the  purpose  of  augmenting  its  re- 
venues by  facilitating  and  enlarging  the  commerce  that  produces 
them !  For  you  need  not  be  told  that  your  foreign  and  domestic  com- 
merce are  one  and  indissoluble  ;  that  without  exports  you  can  have 
no  importations,  and  of  course  no  revenues  from  imposts.  And  yet 
it  is  gravely  maintained  that  the  national  arm  is  paralyzed,  so  that 


38 

it  cannot  raise  a  ringer  to  remove  a  sandbar  or  dig  a  trench,  which 
would  release  annually  millions  upon  millions  of  the  products  of 
your  soil,  and  float  them  to  every  market  of  the  world  to  purchase 
these  exchanges. 

The  objection  that  the  grant  of  power  "  to  regulate  commerce  " 
does  not  authorise  appropriations  merely  to  facilitate  it, — to  render 
it  more  safe  and  convenient, — it  is  obvious,  applies  to  all  kinds  of 
commerce  equally;  to  that  with  foreign  nations,  to  that  among  the 
states,  and  to  that  with  the  Indian   tribes.     And  it  applies  also,  to 
every  species  and  degree  of  facility.     If  you  may  build  a'  public 
pier,  you  may  build  two  and  clear  the  entrance  of  a  harbor ;  if  you 
may  survey  your  coasts  to  ascertain  the  sunken  rocks  or  other  hidden 
dangers  to  navigation,  and  may  erect  a  buoy   or  a  light-house,  or 
station  a  light  boat,  to  warn  the  mariner  of  those   dangers,  surely 
you  may  remove  the  rocks  themselves,  or  deepen  the   shoals  that 
cause  the   danger.     No  subtlety  can  distinguish  them  in  principle. 
And  the  true  issue  is,  whether  you  will  repudiate  the   construction 
so  universally  given  in  this  and  all  other  cases,  to  the  power  "  to  re- 
gulate," and  abandon  the  system  for  the  improvement  of  the  Indian 
tribes, — renounce  the  authority  to  constitute  territorial  governments 
and  provide  for  the  wants  of  the   citizens  subjected  to  them, — and 
give  up   your  coast  surveys,  your  buoys,   light-houses  and   public 
piers,  as  subjects  altogether  beyond  your  competency;  or  whether  you 
will  faithfully  and  fairly  apply  the   principles  coeval  with  our  gov- 
ernment,  which   have   been  sanctioned  by  the  most  severe  of  the 
strict-construction  school,  and  by  the  whole  people  in  repeated  in- 
stances, to  objects  and  cases  clearly  and  palpably  within  the  range 
of  those  principles  1     The  question  upon  this  issue  can  meet  but  one 
response  ;  it  never  has  met  but  one  response,  when   public  senti- 
ment has  been  permitted  to  speak  through  its  representatives  ;  and 
that  response  has  been  and  ever  will  be,  that  the  general  govern- 
ment not  only  has  the  right,  but  is  bound  by  every  principle  of  good 
faith,  to  apply  the  common  funds  of  the  nation  to  those  improvements 
of  the  means  of  intercourse  which  are  beyond  the  power  or  the 
means  of  the   states.     The  expression  of  that  sentiment  may  have 
been  temporarily  stifled  by  false  alarms  or  by  combinations  of  party 
interests,  deemed  at  the  time  paramount  to  other  considerations. 
But  when  these  transient  clouds  have  passed  away,  it  has  burst  forth 
over  and  over  again  in  all  its  effulgence  and  strength.     The  conven- 
tion whose  proceedings   we  transmit,  furnishes  a  memorable  proof, 
which  no  hardihood  can  question,  of  the  universality  and  strength  of 


39 

that  sentiment.  It  was  sufficient  to  absorb  all  party  impulses,  to 
defy  all  political  organizations,  and  to  unite  on  one  common  platform 
of  faith  and  of  action,  multitudes  from  a  large  majority  of  the  states 
of  this  Union  who  probably  never  before  agreed  upon  any  subject. 

And  we  cannot  forbear  calling  your  attention  to  the  stern  lan- 
guage in  which  that  Convention  rebuked  and  disavowed  every  at- 
tempt to  connect  the  cause  of  internal  trade  and  "  commerce  among 
the  States,"  with  the  fortunes  of  any  political  party.  It  was  the  lan- 
guage of  truth  and  of  manly  firmness  and  sincerty.  But  the  same 
resolution  displays  the  fixed  determination  of  our  constituents  to 
press  on  and  persevere  in  their  efforts,  regardless  of  party  ties  and 
associations,  until  the  principles  which  they  proclaimed,  shall  be  re- 
established and  recognised  by  all  parties  as  the  great  elements  of 
the  political  and  social  vitality  of  these  confederated  States. 

We  appeal  to  you,  representatives  of  the  people  and  of  the  states, 
to  represent  and  reflect  faithfully  those  deep  seated  sentiments  of  that 
people,  to  satisfy  their  just  and  reasonable  wants,  to  consult  their 
vital  interests,  to  perform  a  plain  duty  under  the  constitution,  to  re- 
deem the  faith  plighted  at  its  adoption,  and  to  pursue  firmly  and 
steadily  the  path  marked  out  by  our  wise  and  patriotic  fathers.  We 
and  those  whom  we  represent,  ask  not  a  reckless  course  of  extrava- 
gant appropriations  for  internal  improvements.  We  deprecate  it, 
not  only  for  its  folly  and  wickedness,  but  because  it  would  be  most 
fatal  to  the  continuance  of  just  and  reasonable  expenditures.  We 
are  aware  that  the  objects  which  will  be  presented  to  your  attention 
are  numerous  and  various,  but  this  only  proves  how  great  and  press- 
ing is  the  necessity  of  your  action.  Many  of  these  objects  are  equal- 
ly worthy,  but  there  are  some  which  on  account  of  the  magnitude  of 
the  commerce  concerned,  the  difficulties  and  expenses  of  the  under- 
taking, or  other  peculiar  causes,  may  justly  challenge  priority  of 
consideration.  Plans  for  the  gradual  accomplishment  of  the  most 
important  objects  in  just  and  regular  succession,  by  moderate  appro- 
priations, have  been  laid  before  Congress.  Let  these  plans  be  pur- 
sued, while  promiscuous  and  desultory  expenditures  are  carefully 
avoided.  Let  the  sanction  of  the  disinterested,  able  and  scientific 
corps  of  Topographical  Engineers,  already  provided  for  the  purpose, 
be  required  to  every  plan  of  improvement  after  thorough  investiga- 
tion of  its  merits,  and  let  rigid  estimates  of  its  expenses  be  submit- 
ted, before  it  be  undertaken,  that  all  may  judge  of  the  proportion 
between  its  cost  and  its  value. 


40 


And  having  thus  provided  the  sure  means  of  detecting  useless  of 
frivolous  projects  or  those  requiring  inordinate  expenditures,  there 
can  be  no  danger  of  combinations  to  execute  them,  which  will  not 
be  met  and  overcome  by  the  honesty,  disinterestedness  and  intelli- 
gence of  the  American  Congress.  The  people  are  willing  to  trust 
their  Representatives — let  not  those  Representatives  exhibit  to  the 
world  the  spectacle  of  refusing  to  trust  themselves. 

Signed^  by  and  in  behalf  of  the  members  of  the  Executive 
Committee  of  the  Chicago  Convention, 
May,   1848. 


ABBOT  LAWRENCE, 
JOHN  MILLS, 
JOHN  C.  SPENCER, 
SAMUEL  B.  RUGGLES, 
JAMES  T.  MOREHEAD, 
JACOB  G.  SLEIGHT, 
ZEBULON  BAIRD, 
THOMAS  ALLEN, 
JOSEPH  M.  CONVERSE, 
ALEXANDER  DUNCAN, 
ZACHARIAH  ALLEN, 
GEORGE  C.  STONE, 
WM.  B.   EWING, 
JAMES  HALL, 
JOSEPH  L.  WEATHERLY, 
THOMAS  W.  WILLIAMS, 
PHILIP  RIPLEY,- 
T.  I.  BIG  HAM, 
JOHN  B.  JOHNSON, 
RUFUS  KING, 
CYRUS  WOODMAN, 
T.HOS.  BUTLER  KING, 
WM.  B.  HODGSON, 
J.  G.  CAMP, 
JOSEPH  R.  WILLIAMS, 
DAVID  A.  NOBLE, 
CHARLES  JARVIS, 
GEORGE  EVANS, 
DAVID  J.  BAKER, 
JESSE  B.  THOMAS, 
CHARLES  KING, 
L.   KIRKPATRICK, 
JAMES  WILSON, 
JOHN  PAGE, 


Massachusetts. 

New- York. 
Kentucky. 


Connecticut. 


Pennsylvania, 

Wisconsin. 

Georgia. 
Florida. 
Michigan. 

Maine. 

Illinois. 

New  Jersey. 

New  Hampshire. 


41 

At  a  meeting  of  the  delegates  from  different  parts  of  the  Union,  in 
Convention,  held  at  Chicago,  in  the  State  of  Illinois,  pursuant  to 
public  notice,  on  the  fifth  day  of  July,  1847. 

President, 
EDWARD  BATES,  of  Missouri, 

Vice  Presidents, 

John  H.  Brockway,  Connecticut. 
John  G.  Camp,  Florida^ 
T.  Butler  King,  Georgia. 
E.  W.  H.  Ellis,  Indiana. 
Charles  S.  Hempstead,  Illinois. 
G.  H.  Williams,  Iowa. 
M.   A.  Chandler,  Maine. 
Wm.  T.  Eustis,  Massachusetts. 
Wm.  Woodbridge,  Michigan. 
N.  W.  Watkins,  Missouri. 
Erastus  Corning,  New-York. 
Littleton  Kirkpatrick,  New  Jersey  * 
Francis  S.  Fiske,  New  Hampshire. 
William  Bebb,  Ohio, 
Andrew  M.  Loomis,  Pennsylvania. 
Hamilton  Hopper,  Rhode  Island. 
John  H.  Tweedy,  Wisconsin. 

Secretaries, 

Schuyler  Colfax,   Indiana. 
Aaron  Hobart,  Massachusetts. 
Francis  U.  Fenno,  New-York. 
William  J.  Otis,  Ohio. 
Henry   W.  Starr,  Iowa. 
Neilson  G.  Edwards,  Illinois. 
t>avid  A.  Noble,  Michigan. 
Peter  McMartin,  New  Jersey. 
Frederick  S.  Lovell,  Wisconsin. 
A.  B.   Chambers,  Missouri. 

The  following  resolution  was  proposed  and  adopted  : 
Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  two  from  each  State  and  Territory 
represented  in  this  Convention,  be  appointed  by  the  President,  to 

6 


42 

prepare  and  report  such  resolutions  as  they  may  recommend  to  be 
adopted  by  this  Convention. 

July  6,   1847. 
The  President  announced  the  following  as  the  committee  on  reso- 
lutions, appointed  under  the  resolution  of  yesterday  : 

John  C.  Wright  and  J.  W.  Gray,  of  Ohio. 
George  A.  Kuhn  and  Artemus  Lee,  Massachusetts. 
Wm.  Woodbridge  and  Calvin  Britain,  Michigan. 
Daniel  Mace  and  Andrew  I.  Osborn,  Indiana. 
John  C.  Spencer  and  Alvin  Bronson,  New-York. 
John  D.  Cook  and  Fletcher  M.  Haight,  Missouri. 
T.  J.  Bigham  and  J.  C.  Marshall,  Pennsylvania. 
Jesse  B.  Thomas  and  David  J.  Baker,  Illinois. 
N.  P.  Talmadge  and  J.  D.  Kingsland,  Wisconsin. 
N.  O.  Kellogg  and  Joel  W.  Wnite,  Connecticut. 
M.  A.  Chandler  and  F.  B.  Stockbridge,  Maine. 
John  G.  Camp,  Florida. 

T.  Butler  King  and  Wm.  B.  Hodgson,  Georgia. 
George  H.  Williams  and  N.  L.  Stout,  Iowa. 
H.  C.  Blackbourne  and  T.  H.  Crawford,  Kentucky. 
Edward  Seagrave  and  Hamilton  Hopper,  Rhode  Island. 
Roswell  L.  Colt  and  Charles  King,  Xew  Jersey. 


In  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day,  Mr.  John  C.  Wright,  of  Ohio, 
from  the  committee  on  resolutions,  presented  the  following  for  the 
consideration  of  the  Convention,  and  on  moving  its  adoption,  in- 
formed the  Convention  that  the  committee  had  been  unanimous  in 
recommending  the  propositions  presented  by  him  in  their  behalf. 

W'hereupon  the  question  having  been  stated  on  each  proposition 
distinctly,  and  the  same  having  been  debated  and  amended,  they 
were  adopted  as  follows,  all  of  them  unanimously,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  last  clause  of  the  fifth  proposition ;  and  an  executive 
committee  of  two  from  each  State  and  Territory  was  appointed,  to 
transmit  the  proceedings  of  the  Convention  to  the  President  of  the 
of  the  United  States  and  to  both  houses  oi  Congress,  and  to  com- 
municate to  them  such  information  as  the  committee  may  collect,  to 
grade  intelligent  and  just  legislation  : 


43 


Declaration  of  Sentiments. 

The  convention  submit  to  their  fellow  citizens  and  to  the  federal 
government  the  following  propositions,  as  expressing  their  own  sen- 
timents and  those  of  their  constituents  : 

First.  That  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  framed  by 
practical  men,  for  practical  purposes,  declared  in  its  preamble,  "To 
provide  for  the  common  defence,  to  promote  the  general  welfare, 
and  to  secure  the  blessings  of  Liberty,"  and  was  mainly  designed  to 
create  a  government  whose  functions  should  and  would  be  adequate 
to  the  protection  of  the  common  interests  of  all  the  States,  or  of 
two  or  more  of  them,  which  could  not  be  maintained  by  the  action 
of  the  separated  States.  That  in  strict  accordance  with  this  object, 
the  revenues  derived  from  commerce  were  surrendered  to  the  Gen- 
eral Government,  with  the  express  understanding  that  they  should 
be  applied  to  the  promotion  of  those  common  interests. 

Second.  That  among  these  common  interests  and  objects  were  : 
1st.  Foreign  .Commerce,  to  the  regulation  of  which  the  powers  of 
the  States  severally  were  confessedly  inadequate,  and  2nd,  internal 
trade  and  navigation,  wherever  the  concurrence  of  two  or  more  states 
was  necessary  to  its  preservation,  or  where  the  expense  of  its  main- 
tenance should  be  equitably  borne  by  two  or  more  States,  and  where 
of  course,  those  States  must  necessarily  have  a  voice  in  its  regula- 
tion ;  and  hence  resulted  the  constitutional  grant  of  power  to  Con- 
gress, "  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  nations  and  among  the 
States." 

Third.  That  being  thus  possessed  both  of  the  means  and  of  the 
power  which  were  denied  to  the  States  respectively,  Congress  be- 
came obligated  by  every  consideration  of  good  faith  and  common 
justice,  to  cherish  and  increase,  both  the  kinds  of  commerce  thus 
committed  to  its  care,  by  expanding  and  extending  the  means  of 
conducting  them,  and  of  affording  them  all  those  facilities  and  all 
that  protection  which  the  States  ivdividually  would  have  afforded, 
had  the  revenue  and  the  authority  been  left  to  them. 

Fourth.  That  this  obligation  has  ever  been  recognized  from  the 
foundation  of  the  government,  and  has  been  fulfilled  partially,  by 
erecting  light-houses,  building  piers  for  harbors,  break-waters  and 
sea-walls,  removing  obstructions  in  rivers,  and  providing  other  facili- 
ties for  the  commerce  carried  on  from  the  ports  of  the  Atlantic  coast  : 


44 

and  the  same  obligations  have  been  fulfilled  to  a  much  less  extent 
in  providing  similar  facilities  for  "commerce  among  the  States,"  and 
that  the  principle  has  been  most  emphatically  acknowledged  to  em- 
brace the  Western  Lakes  and  Rivers,  by  appropriations  for  numer- 
ous light-houses  upon  them,  which  appropriations  have  never  been 
questioned  in  Congress  as  wanting  constitutional  authority. 

Fifth.  That  thus  by  a  series  of  acts  which  have  received  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  of  every  department  of 
the  Federal  Government,  under  all  administrations,  the  common  un- 
derstanding of  the  intent  and  objects  of  the  framers  of  the  Consti- 
tution, in  granting  to  Congress  the  power  to  regulate  commerce,  has 
been  munifested  and  has  been  confirmed  by  the  People,  and  this 
understanding  has  become  as  much  a  part  of  that  instrument  as  any 
one  of  its  most  explicit  provisions. 

Sixth.  That  the  power  "  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign  na- 
tions, and  among  the  States,  and  with  the  Indian  tribes,"  is  on  its 
face  so  palpably  applicable  in  its  whole  extent  to  each  of  the  sub- 
jects enumerated,  equally  and  in  the  same  manner,  as  to  render  any 
attempts  to  make  it  more  explicit,  idle  and  futile;  and  that  those  who 
admit  the  rightful  application  of  the  power  to  Foreign  Commerce  in 
facilitating  and  protecting  its  operations,  by  improving  harbors  and 
clearing  out  navigable  rivers,  cannot  consistently  deny  that  it  equal- 
ly authorizes  similar  facilities  to  '  Commerce  among  the  States.' 

Seventh.  That  "  Foreign  Commerce"  is  dependent  upon  internal 
trade  for  the  distribution  of  its  freights,  and  for  the  means  of  paying 
for  them,  so  that  whatever  improves  the  one  advances  the  other,  and 
they  are  so  inseparable  that  they  should  be  regarded  as  one.  That 
an  export  from  the  American  shore  to  a  British  port  in  Canada,  is  as 
much  foreign  commerce  as  if  it  had  been  directly  to  Liverpool.  And 
that  an  exportation  to  Liverpool  neither  gains  or  loses  any  of  the 
characteristics  of  foreign  commerce  by  the  directness  or  circuity  of 
the  route,  whether  it  passes  through  a  custom  house  on  the  British 
side  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  or  descends  through  that  river  and  its  con- 
necting canals  to  the  ocean;  or  whether  it  passes  along  the  artificial 
communications  and  natural  streams  of  any  of  the  States  to  the  At- 
lantic. 

Eighth.  That  the  General  Government,  by  extending  its  jurisdic- 
tion over  Lakes  and  navigable  Rivers,  subjecting  them  to  the  same 
laws  which  prevail  on  the  ocean,  and  on  its  bays  and  ports,  not  only 
for  purposes  of  revenue,  but  to  give  security  to  life  and  property,  by 
the  regulation  of  steamboats,  has  precluded  itself  from  denying  that 


45 

jurisdiction  for  any  other  legitimate  regulation  of  commerce.  If  it 
has  power  to  control  and  restrain,  it  must  have  the  same  power  to 
protect,  assist  and  facilitate  5  and  if  it  denies  the  jurisdiction  in  the 
one  mode  of  action,  it  should  renounce  it  in  the  other. 

Ninth.  That  in  consequence  of  the  peculiar  dangers  of  the  navi- 
gation of  the  Lakes,  arising  from  the  want  of  harhors  for  shelter, 
and  of  the  Western  Rivers,  from  snags  and  other  obstructions,  there 
are  no  parts  of  the  United  States  more  emphatically  demanding  the 
prompt  and  continued  care  of  the  Government  to  diminish  those 
dangers,  and  to  protect  the  life  and  property  exposed  to  them  ;  and 
that  any  one  who  can  regard  provisions  for  those  purposes  as  sec- 
tional or  local,  and  not  national,  must  be  wanting  in  information  of 
the  extent  of  the  commerce  carried  on  upon  those  lakes  and  rivers, 
and  of  the  amount  of  teeming  population  occupied  or  interested  in 
that  navigation. 

Tenth.  That  having  regard  to  the  relative  population  or  to  the  ex- 
tent of  commerce,  the  appropriations  heretofore  made  for  the  interior 
rivers  and  lakes,  and  the  streams  connecting  them  with  the  ocean, 
have  not  been  in  a  just  and  fair  proportion  to  those  made  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Atlantic  coast ;  and  that  the  time  has  arrived  when 
this  injustice  should  be  corrected,  in  the  only  mode  in  which  it  can 
be  done — by  the  united,  determined  and  presevering  efforts  of  those 
whose  rights  have  been  overlooked. 

Eleventh.  That  independent  of  this  right  to  protection  of  "  Com- 
merce among  the  States",  the  right  of  "common  defence",  guar- 
anteed by  the  Constitution,  entitles  those  citizens  inhabiting  the 
country  bordering  upon  the  interior  lakes  and  rivers  to  such  safe  and 
convenient  harbors  as  may  afford  shelter  to  a  navy,  whenever  it 
shall  be  rendered  necessary  by  hostilities  with  our  neighbors  ;  and 
that  the  construction  of  such  harbors  cannot  safely  be  delayed  to  the 
time  which  will  demand  their  immediate  use. 

Twelfth.  That  the  argument  most  commonly  urged  against  ap- 
propriations to  protect  "Commerce  among  the  States,"  and  to  de- 
fend the  inhabitants  of  the  frontiers,  that  they  invite  sectional  com- 
binations to  insure  success  to  many  unworthy  objects,  is  founded  on 
a  practical  distrust  of  the  Republican  principles  of  our  government, 
and  of  the  capacity  of  the  people  to  select  competent  and  honest 
representatives.  That  it  may  be  urged  with  equal  force  against  le- 
gislation upon  any  other  subject,  involving  various  and  extensive 
interests.  That  a  just  appreciation  of  the  rights  and  interests  of  all 
our  fellow  citizens,  in  every  quarter  of  the  Union,  disclaiming  selfish 


46 

and  local  purposes,  will  lead  intelligent  representatives  to  such  a 
distribution  of  the  means  in  the  Treasury,  upon  a  system  of  mode- 
ration and  ultimate  equality,  as  will  in  time  meet  the  most  urgent 
wants  of  all,  and  prevent  those  jealousies  and  suspicions  which 
threaten  the  most  serious  danger  to  our  confederacy. 

Thirteenth.  That  we  are  utterly  incapable  of  perceiving  the  diffe- 
rence between  a  harbor  for  shelter  and  a  harbor  for  commerce,  and 
suppose  that  a  mole  or  pier  which  will  afford  safe  anchorage  and 
protection  to  a  vessel  against  a  storm,  must  necessarily  improve 
such  harbor,  and  adapt  it  to  commercial  purposes. 

Fourteenth.  That  the  imposts  on  foreign  goods  and  the  public 
lands  being  the  common  heritage  of  all  our  citizens,  so  long  as  these 
resources  continue,  the  imposition  of  any  special  burden  on  any 
portion  of  the  people,  to  obtain  the  means  of  accomplishing  objects 
equally  within  the  duty  and  the  competency  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment, would  be  unjust  and  oppressive. 

Fifteenth.  That  we  disavow  all  and  every  attempt  to  connect 
the  cause  of  internal  trade  and  "Commerce  among  the  States,"  with 
the  fortunes  of  any  political  party  j  but  that  we  mean  to  place  that 
cause  upon  such  immutable  principles  of  truth,  justice  and  consti- 
tutional duty,  as  shall  command  the  respect  of  all  parties,  and  the 
deference  of  all  candidates  for  public  favor. 


